


The Mathematical Improbability of Reaching the Stars

by cassieoh, D20Owlbear



Series: The Mathematical Improbability of Reaching the Stars and Others [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (not too descriptive), 6000 metaphorical years of pining, A plot is the romance of course, And C plot is all the background characters trying to get the A plot to fucking move, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is in a doctorate program, Aziraphale needs help with Astronomy, Aziraphale tries to find a tutor on Tinder, B plot is the disaster that is Crowley's life, Crowley Has a Pet Snake (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley also knows a lot about stars and is a nerd, Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley works at a plant nursery, Friends to Lovers, Gang Violence, He's got an important job, Human AU, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Panic Attacks, Pining, Rated T for Misuse of Tinder, Slow Burn, Snangst (snake angst), The Bentley Is A Good Old Girl And A Trooper, The Snakes name is Anthony J Crawly Jr Esq., Tinder Meet Cute, WARNING: Not Nice To Bentley, We stan Old Lady Eve and Dr Haistwell in this house, an onion of healing, and also too old for this shit, heavy disassociation in response to pet death and attempts to cope, in which we fuck up the Bentley and also all of our hearts, meet cute, pet death, secret B plot, the authors projecting on the characters, very goddamn slowburn, who are in turn projecting on one (1) small snake and one (1) dissertation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 193,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21742480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/D20Owlbear/pseuds/D20Owlbear
Summary: Aziraphale, 3rd year doctoral candidate in Library Sciences and current failure at Astronomy 101, finds out about an app for meeting people from some undergraduates. He’s desperate for a tutor so he decides to try it out. Surely someone in the wilds of Tinder is willing to help him learn about the stars?Meanwhile, in said wilds of Tinder, Crowley (high school dropout, star enthusiast, and official garden center plant-harasser) is not really looking for anything past dinner and maybe ‘tea’ back at their place.Hijinks, and also a surprisingly intricate plot, ensue.Update: COMPLETED
Relationships: Aziraphale & Death, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Eve (Good Omens)
Series: The Mathematical Improbability of Reaching the Stars and Others [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767469
Comments: 1174
Kudos: 547
Collections: Chaotic Omens: The Fallout of a Big Bang, Good Omens Human AUs





	1. Of Old Books

**Author's Note:**

  * For [robynthemagpie_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robynthemagpie_writes/gifts).



> This is entirely robyn's fault and we're so incredibly grateful bc DAMN y'all we have _plans_.

_Match. Chat. Date._

Aziraphale sighed and closed his eyes as he hit the download button on the app his classmates had suggested. He’d balked momentarily at the age restriction, before it occurred to him that since Tinder claimed to be a people-meeting app some people might go there to find a date. Surely, that was why it was rated 17+. You couldn’t control people and what they said, free will and all that, Aziraphale supposed. Though he did resent that he might have to wade through those people in his own search.

Well, here went nothing.

The set up questions were essentially what he might have expected had he ever considered using an app like this before. He used ‘Azira’ as his name, trusting most people could pronounce _that_ correctly. Occupation, location, standard demographic information. Then he paused and sucked in a startled breath, as the app began asking about his sexual preferences. Aziraphale scrunched up his eyebrows and almost set it aside before he caught sight of the grade he’d gotten on his latest astronomy test. Written in red and circled twice, it- it was atrocious. Worse than that, it was embarrassing. While _some_ thought that it was alright to skate by, citing the ever-popular axiom “C’s get degrees”, Aziraphale didn’t. He couldn’t. It wasn’t that he particularly thought poorly of those who did, but he wouldn’t be able to live with the anxiety poor academic performance sparked in him. He’d given up too much, fought too long and hard for this to–

He took a deep breath, shoving those thoughts and worries aside. He had a plan, he could fix this. 

He picked up the red-covered exam and hid it away, slipping it between the heavy covers of _Paper Acidity: A Primer_ and _Soil Compositions Along the Nile Delta and the Production of Papyrus in the Middle Kingdom_. 

That was why he was here, filling out these questions (which really felt a bit too personal if he was being honest with himself) all in order to find a tutor. He’d overheard a group of second-years talking on their way into lecture earlier that week; one young lady had mentioned she’d found a tutor on the Tinder app and everyone else had asked for details, thoroughly agreeing that she’d found a great one amidst plenty of laughter. He added his school, feeling slightly bolstered by that question, and then immediately deflated at the need for pictures. 

Why did his face matter?

Wait! What if this was for what he needed help in? And, perhaps, to find him if there was a crowd? He would, of course, meet someone new in a public place, particularly if his tutor ended up being female. That made perfect sense. Aziraphale chuckled at his own foolishness. The sexual orientation question really had thrown him off, but he’d been honest on that too, and really, it did help that he could choose to simply not check the box that said to put it on his profile. Maybe even that was to make sure that tutors signed up as LGTBQ+ friendly? He appreciated that sort of responsible thinking on the part of the app developers, and he would hate to think he’d found the perfect tutor only to encounter someone, well– He’d hate for it to not work out. 

Either way, Aziraphale took a picture of himself, smiling as kindly as he could for a dreaded _selfie_ , and then took pictures of his textbooks. He added a few to the pile that was currently hiding the shame of his poor grade; _Precious Stones in Late Medieval Illumination_ and a personal favorite, _Binding for Beginners_. He only needed to take a few, but he made sure all the titles were in clear view, just in case!

And that was that, he was done with his profile. The app took him to a view of other people, and a rather baffling swiping system. He’d swiped the wrong way on a few men and women who didn’t much look like they were studying (quite a few of these people looked to be “gym rats” as the phrase goes, but no matter!) before he discovered the buttons and started making his selections after inspecting each profile for possible tutor material. He was generally out of luck, to be sure, but he still had hope! After all, with this many people (the app store said millions of users, and wasn’t that delightful) there had to be at least _someone_ who could help him. And so, with a single-minded determination, Aziraphale swiped left on a large number of people.

* * *

Crowley woke with a groan and rolled off his bed. He yelped as the cold floor on his sleep-warm skin yanked with ungodly speed and a bitten-off curse into wakefulness. There were occasions, like now, he was glad he’d gotten a proper fold-up futon that laid out on the ground instead of a box-spring and raised bed situation. Glancing over at the analog clock he hung above his doorway, Crowley groaned again. 2-bloody-am. Who was awake at this time of day?! 

Another sickeningly cheerful little beep sounded from the phone shoved under his thin pillow. He reached up onto the bed and fumbled around until he found the infernal thing and pulled it to his face, blinking against the miniature sun behind the screen. 

He shot his phone the worst glare he could muster—a twist of his lips and a furrowed brow and the weight of the exhaustion that pulled at him—before rolling back onto the bed to curl up in the chaotic nest his sleeping habits inevitably turned any pile of blankets into. With nothing better to do, and his chest still aching in that way having all the warmth sucked out of skin does, he pulled the phone up again, fighting bleary eyes to actually see the notification. He groaned. _Tinder_ , really? He’d been woken up, lost his perfect little bubble of warmth, for a match?

Crowley squinted, no, it was a super match. He rolled his eyes, super matches were weird and useless, but hey, if someone liked his snake picture enough... A thought occurred, ugh, it had better not be to ask him if that was him. _Obviously_ it was. 

He opened the match and his eyes widened in interest. That one, huh? He’d only just seen him and swiped right just before falling into bed last night. Did that mean that the poor bugger was awake at 2 am and had _just_ matched with him? Maybe the super match was a mistake… the thought crept into the back of his mind, curling around his hindbrain and urging him to just push the phone away and chicken out in sending a message. The more logical side of him agreed, he should at least wait until morning.

  


Sending a response at two in the morning said a lot of things and none of them were really things Crowley wanted to be saying. 

But one thing that needed to be understood about Crowley, was that he was an ornery little shit and very much liked to disregard good advice, even if it was his own. Sometimes _especially_ his own, because he also knew that he was an idiot and often acted accordingly. So, he typed out a quick message with a pun that made him chuckle, sleep-deprived and almost delirious, into the empty darkness around his bed, hit send, and passed out with a small smile on his lips for a whole 3-and-a-half hours before he had to wake up and face his shift in the nursery at 6. 

  


* * *

_Ping!_ A happy little sound twinkled from Aziraphale’s phone and, pulled out of his fitful doze, he jumped up from his bed, hands trembling with anxious nerves. He almost dropped the phone while attempting to open it, giving up on using the fingerprint scanner and instead of typing in his passcode. _Confounded thing, always doing whatever it wanted!_ Aziraphale griped to himself with a grimace at the time on his screen. 2:13 am. What a time to be alive. 

He’d always prided himself on his ability to power through, to work all night when the rest of his cohort collapsed into sleep or unproductive rabbit-trails through the stacks. But the stress of the entire situation was sapping his previously inexhaustible well of energy and enthusiasm for poring over thick tomes. 

But, this- Oh, this was _hope_ in a notification. 

Aziraphale grinned wildly at the message from the only match he’d made, the only person he’d clicked “like” on, and accidentally did something called a “super like,” but that was fine, he was perfect! His Instagram was full of plant facts, and even better, he’d written them in a way that was accessible and easy to digest (plus when Aziraphale cross-referenced they were all true!) and he even put directly in his bio that he wanted more space and science! He was perfect. 

_Anthony, MrPlantMan on instagram, and space enthusiast._

He didn’t mention where he studied, but that was probably just something he might not want to give out on a public site like that. Why, Aziraphale couldn’t fathom, but he knew some people were odd like that, constantly worried about internet safety and whatnot when everyone knew perfectly well the governments of the world already had all your information, and if someone wanted it badly enough they could hack into something and find out. There were so many other things to worry about, he couldn’t be bothered to add something like hiding his identity to that pile. 

And with those half-formed thoughts and the weightlessness of relief nestled around his shoulders, he exited his cluttered office and collapsed into his bed, stretching out until the kinks in his back clicked and he felt his shoulders relax. He plugged his phone in and checked that all three alarms were set for the morning so he had exactly as much time as he needed to get up and be ready for the long hike to campus and the 8 am course he was assisting the professor in and tutoring for this term. Then he folded his hands across his chest, closed his eyes, and slipped off to sleep. 

* * *

The next morning, just before 8, Crowley’s phone pinged. He glanced at it and then back to the ledger in front of him. He was in the middle of some calculations for a customer’s order and painstakingly drawing out the numbers, the notification could wait. His mind was much faster than his hands, especially when he was forced to write anything. It was always that way, essays and tests and notes had forever been his bane, seemingly simple tasks that were just outside his reach, close enough to touch and yet impossible for him to grasp. It was why he dropped out at 16. Well, among other reasons, ones he preferred not to think on when at all possible. But, it was mainly because he couldn’t stand seeing the numbers and letters mix up and _writhe_ on the page like they were in pain from how his traitorous hands deformed them. The less he had to write, the less he had to think about it, the better. The less it hurt too—his fingers cramped any time he had to hold a pen or pencil for longer than a few minutes at a time. He hated that feeling, the tension and pull at fingers that wanted to be buried in rich loam or trailing across delicate leaves, not locked around a pen. 

So he just... didn’t write. Or, he tried not to. Numbers were different from words; they were important, numbers kept the world turning and there were only 10 of them Crowley had to practice, so he wrote down the numbers. Usually, he didn’t do calculations and numbers at the same time, preferring to do the math in his head. He’d never gotten the wrong result, as long as he wasn’t trying to write at the same time. 

The little light on his phone was blinking away, merrily distracting him and when Crowley looked back at the paper he realized he’d been about to write an 8 instead of a 3. He sighed out through his nose in frustration. No, better hold off on writing this out for now, he never forgot transactions so he could get it written out later. With a grimace, he erased all the new numbers for this customer’s order with the large, pink rubber beside the ledger, and returned his attention to the man in the nursery. 

“Anything I can help you find, or have you picked up everything today, Mr. Avgerinós?” The man in question was tall and lithe—not entirely unlike Crowley himself—with dark hair and a piercing gaze that always put Crowley on edge. Mr. Avgerinós visited every month, spending an hour at minimum walking up and down each and every row of the three greenhouses that comprised Eve’s Eden, and making small, ambiguous noises as he went. Crowley felt constantly like he was being judged, like every glance from the other man was filled with ill-intent, every stutter in his steps indication of a nefarious motive. But Lucien Avgerinós had never done anything, not in the eight years the man had been visiting and buying up some of Crowley’s more expensive flowering plants. He’d never bought fewer than three and once, memorably, had left after having spent nearly three thousand quid on a full dozen rare potted tulips. 

Crowley couldn’t help but keep track of the numbers of them; three-three-eight-five-seven, his mind filed away the numbers along with all the other purchases the regulars at the garden center made. He wondered constantly just _where_ they were going. His first, hopefully crazy, thought had been funeral flowers, but no one bought the full plants for that. The man was probably just a prolific gardener… with a black thumb. Yeah, that sounded normal enough. Crowley thought he was a professor or a lawyer or something like that, he probably wasn’t home enough to take care of the delicate and expensive plants he spent so much money on. 

“No, that’ll be it for me today, Crawley.” Crowley hated how Lucien said his name. He _knew_ the man could turn that awful, confusing flat accent of his into something proper and British if he tried, he always sounded like a proper Brit around Old Lady, after all. Every time Lucien said Crowley’s name, it felt like he was expected to grovel at his feet, the way the man’s tongue curled around the vowel reminded him of crawling insects and bugs rather than the Irish “descendant of the hard hero” it was supposed to be. Crowley _liked_ his last name; it might have been tied to some rough memories, but those feelings rarely outweighed the sense of being strong. His name was his and it brought him comfort to think of it as a sign he was meant to carry on. 

“Great,” Crowley said with the brightest (and fakest) smile he could manage. He tried to keep his frustration out of his voice, this was London and rent was awful after all. His own discomfort with a customer couldn’t outweigh the fact a single visit covered anywhere between half and three-quarters of Old Lady’s rent on the center. “These three will be nine-eighty-seven and thirty.” He stroked the gently sloped leaves of the _T. jonesii_. He’d been growing this one for nearly six years and was fond of the brilliant starburst of yellow flowers. It had never disappointed him (unlike so many of the others). 

Lucien pulled out a card, tossing it across the counter with the casual disregard of the obscenely wealthy. Crowley sighed and pulled on a strained customer service smile. 

“I’m sorry, sir, but you know we can’t take cards. The card machine is–”

“–It’s broken, right.” Lucien cut Crowley off with a dismissive wave and opened the billfold of his wallet to pull out fresh-from-the-ATM-around-the-corner £50 notes. Exactly enough to cover the pricey cost of the flowers he’d purchased. He set the notes on the table and flicked his eyes towards the back, holding his hand out for the card he’d tossed so casually before. Crowley grit his teeth and handed it over with a tight _thank you, sir_ , and goosebumps broke out across the back of Crowley’s shoulders.

Normally, he delighted in the annoyed look on customer’s faces when they had to leave and go to the ATM a few doors down for him to process their transaction. Then, if they were truly terrible he’d make them wait as he painstakingly (and still sloppily, no matter how hard he bloody tried) wrote out a receipt in shorthand.

Lucien checked his phone, smiled, and scooped up the plants. Crowley had to resist the urge to correct the way he was holding them—they weren’t his to care for anymore. 

“Have a nice day,” he grit out, “We’ll see you next month.” 

Lucien smiled at him, sharp and disarming and charming in all the wrong ways that crawled up his spine. “Until then, Crawley.” 

Crowley forced his smile to stay in place until the leaded glass panes in the door stopped rattling in their frames. Then, it dropped and shattered to nothing. The hairs on the nape of his neck were still stood up and he felt like he was being watched even now as he came to the realization that Lucien had been looking at the door that lead out back to his home while Crowley took his payment.

“You creepy fuck,” he hissed. Then, in no place to focus on his writing, he snatched up the mister and stalked off to threaten a few rose bushes into obedience.

* * *

In general, Aziraphale was pretty happy with his advising situation. He crossed campus quickly, jogging from the lecture hall to the out of the way little annex the Library Sciences department had taken over upon the dissolution of their long-hated rival department, Theology. He heaved the ancient wooden door open, slipping inside before it could slam shut and catch his messenger bag. He paused in the dark entryway to savor the scent of the building; the lemony wood polish the maintenance department used on the floors, the faint twang of the goat-glue Abrahms had been working with for the last three weeks, and, overwhelming everything else, the wonderful ambrosia of vanillins and rosin and almond-fruit of old books. The scent grounded him, settling the nerves he constantly endured after the sections of undergraduates he was obliged to supervise. Doctor Haistwell’s office was on the second floor, so he hefted his bag again and made his way up the stairs. He paused outside the door to the office to check the little whiteboard where Doctor Haistwell wrote out ens current pronouns before hurrying on in. 

He checked his pocket watch as he threw himself down into the chair across from Doctor Haistwell’s desk; good, three minutes to spare, he was getting better at making that long trek across campus. He reached into his bag and carefully extracted the report he’d spent most of yesterday compiling. Just as he was straightening the foxed edges of the pages the door opened again, admitting Doctor Haistwell. Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile—Doctor Haistwell was exactly what he thought students probably expected university professors were meant to be; tall, slim, with the sort of shaggy hair that only came from forgetting to go to the barber for months at a time, and deep laugh lines on either side of ens mouth. Aziraphale adored the way ens turned frantic energy into warm care and smiles. He was anxious and nervous so much of his life, he wanted to be as comfortable as Doctor Haistwell one day. 

“Aziraphale!” Doctor Haistwell said as ens settled into the plush leather chair behind the desk. Ens pulled out a large stack of exams to be graded and started marking them as Aziraphale shuffled further forward in his seat. “How are you on this fine and beautiful morning?” Ens used a bright green pen to cross out three lines and drew a little smiley face beside the notation. Aziraphale felt a little more of his stress slip away–he just really appreciated the font of positivity Doctor Haistwell seemed to exude at all times. Doctoral work was hard, it was awful and mind-numbingly stressful, but knowing that he could always come to this office and be listened to was, well, it was what he needed. 

“I’m fine, Doctor Haistwell,” he said, trying to project the sort of calm confidence he was meant to have. 

Clearly he failed because Doctor Haistwell paused in ens grading and set the pen aside. Ens looked up, a slight frown creasing ens brow. 

“What’s bothering you, Azira?” ens asked softly. The desperate urge to cry welled up in Aziraphale’s chest. He didn’t know why or how ens managed to do this, to pull out all the hidden worries that Aziraphale tried to suppress so easily. 

The poor grade burned away in his bag. He considered hiding it, he knew others who would never tell their advisors about those sorts of failures. But, he respected Doctor Haistwell and he desperately didn’t want to be a disappointment. 

“I– Well, you see– what I mean to say is–” he tried and failed to find the words. Eventually, unable to force it out, he reached into his bag once more and pulled out the paper, sliding it across the desk. 

Doctor Haistwell picked it up, ens eyes darting from line to line. With each passing second ens frown deepened and by the time ens flipped the page to look at the back the smile Aziraphale so loved was entirely gone. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly frantic to ensure that ens knew he wasn’t failing the course on purpose. “I promise I studied, I even bought another book to supplement the text Doctor Avgerinós recommended. I just–” He gestured helplessly to the ruin of an exam in Doctor Haistwell’s hands. 

Haistwell set down the exam and looked up at Aziraphale. 

“Azira,” ens said, gentle in a way Aziraphale might find insulting were he not so stressed, “I have every confidence that you can learn this material. In fact, I wouldn’t even be concerned about this, except–”

“I can!” Aziraphale burst out unable to stop himself. 

Ens smiled and chuckled, though it fell away quickly and ens grew somewhat somber. “I’ve heard from the College,” ens explained, “We didn’t get the funding for your project.” 

“What?” Aziraphale felt his fingers begin to twist, the old habit seizing his nerves and wrenching at him. “But, the proposal was so strong and we have interdepartmental funding with Astronomy! Oh, how am I supposed to finish my–”

“Azira.”

“Proposal? I can’t afford to pay for it myself, not with the fibers I’m going to need. The charts are very delicate and I–”

“Aziraphale!”

Oh, _oh._ He felt ill. His head was spinning and his stomach roiled and his hands shook, Aziraphale’s back tensed and he felt nauseous in his _face_. Of course, he could self-fund, he knew that others had done that in the past. Except, well, he might not be hurting for money but he certainly wasn’t as liquid as he would need to be to fund an entire dissertation. His fingers hurt, distantly, the dull creeping ache of joints stressed far too far. 

“Aziraphale Fell!” 

Aziraphale jerked out of his thoughts, startled by the sudden shout. 

He looked up, meeting Doctor Haistwell’s concerned gaze. 

“This will be okay,” ens said, “I promise. You have funding through the Astronomy department and we _will_ find something else for you.” 

“I-,” Aziraphale swallowed and breathed deeply before continuing. “I did find a tutor for the class,” he said shakily, “I used an app and I think we’re going to meet tomorrow.” It wasn’t technically the truth since he’d not heard back from the tutor yet, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of Haistwell thinking poorly of him just then. 

Doctor Haistwell leaned back in ens chair. “There you go!” ens cheered, “A tutor and some hard work and we’ll get you funded before you know it.” 

“Right,” Aziraphale said, “right.” He nodded, and then, wanting to distract himself for even a short time, reached out to take up a few of the undergraduate papers. “Wait,” he said when he saw the title, “Doctor Haistwell, you promised not to assign this question anymore.” 

Now ens was grinning. “I promised nothing of the sort. I think you’ll find I told you I would stop emailing the linguistics department and asking what words are, I said _nothing_ about having the students do it for me.” 

Despite himself, despite his fear about his future in the program and the odd nerves that sang through him when he thought about the tutor he hoped to meet, Aziraphale laughed. 

“Right, Professor,” he said, heart far lighter than it should be in his situation.

It would be alright. He just knew it. He had a good feeling about the tutor. 


	2. Of Library Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And finally, the twain shall meet. We learn more of Crowley and Aziraphale and something more of Eve and Doctor Haistwell.

The walk across campus was a pleasant one when he wasn’t rushing to avoid being late or hauling far too many books or dodging undergraduates. He paused to adjust his satchel, hiking the aging leather strap higher on his shoulder; it liked to slip down as he walked, especially when he was distracted by something (as he often was). He patted the side of the bag, checking that everything he expected to feel was there and then started up the short flight of stairs that lead towards the courtyard in front of the Athenaeum, pulling out his phone as he went.

He clicked the little button on the side to check the time, suddenly nervous that he’d forgotten something and was actually terribly late to an appointment. It was an old fear, one he struggled with often, but not one he needed to worry about just now as he had nearly a full half-hour before his next lecture. 

Just as he moved to slip the phone in his pocket there was a little flash of bright green. He paused, turning the phone so he could see the screen. The little, flashing LED light lit up again, indicating he had a notification. Paranoid about disturbing a class or drawing attention to himself, he usually kept his phone on silent at all times (and triple checked it hadn’t somehow changed status spontaneously), so the light was all he used to mark that he ought to pay attention. The thing was Aziraphale rarely got notifications; his most-used programs were offline games like sudoku or word puzzles and reading apps (though he still greatly preferred the feel of something old and _real_ in his hands). Really, the only ones that deviated from that were the food delivery apps (for when he was too busy to go out to eat, of course). He also rarely got messages at all, so it took him a few moments to place why the light might be _green_ instead of blue as usual.

“Oh,” Aziraphale murmured to himself, surprised at the very notion of being messaged on his phone, “Oh!” He exclaimed half a second later and pulled the phone up close to his face, scrambling to turn on the screen again without dropping it as the phone had nearly jumped from his hands when he remembered he’d sent a reply to the silly astronomy pun from 2 am! His tutor!

[Anthony Thursday 2:13 am] _Your eyes are like black holes, I can’t seem to escape them. But that’s alright, because I like astronomy._

[Azira Thursday 7:56 am] _Oh very good! I’m looking for help with astronomy!_

[Anthony Thursday 9:28 am] _I’m always happy to lend a *helping hand* if you know what I mean. ;)_

Aziraphale grinned at the last message, now certain that he hadn’t been overconfident when he told Doctor Haistwell that he’d found a tutor. This Anthony fellow certainly seemed like he was chuffed about it. Sure, he’d used asterisks incorrectly and Aziraphale wasn’t sure what he’d been trying to accomplish with them in the first place, but that was alright, Aziraphale wasn’t in need of grammar or sentence structure help. In fact, he’d always rather excelled at that portion of his studies. 

[Azira Thursday 10:01 am] _Then should we set up a meeting? Maybe coffee? Just to see if we mesh well._

He pocketed his phone with that and hummed a slow tune with Latin lyrics he’d always liked from the days he participated in choirs as an extracurricular, making his way across the small lawn. By the time he reached the doors he was certain he would be receiving another message soon, would meet his tutor tonight, understand astronomy by tomorrow, and there would be nothing at all for Doctor Avgerinós to complain about. 

All he had to do was be _normal_ for the time it took to drink one coffee and all his problems would be solved. 

He grinned. 

* * *

_The little shed at the back of the garden center wasn’t especially comfortable, though Crowley had plans to change all that. He had big dreams of using his first paycheck (a real, honest to fuck, paycheck that was all his, that he could use to buy food and fill the aching cavern of his belly without standing in the long lines at the local soup kitchen) to buy a blanket that was soft and warm and a little area rug because his toes got so cold in the mornings. He wanted to find lights that he could hang around to make it bright and cozy and maybe a walkman to play the tapes he’d shoved in the bottom of his ratty backpack before– well, before._

_But, those were all plans for another day. Right now, he could just see the early dawn light peeking over the buildings through the thick windows on the eastern wall of the shed. He needed to be dressed and in the main building by sunrise. The idea had been easier to contemplate yesterday, when the old lady first proposed it. But then again, yesterday he’d been hungry and more than a little afraid and before Crowley knew it he’d been bundled up and presented with a large sandwich and a glass of milk and, most alarmingly, a job and a home._

_The shafts of light shifted, arcing further across the corrugated metal wall, dipping and curving in ways he thought he might grow to love. He needed to get up. He stuck a hand out of the meagre warmth the sheet provided and shivered as chilled air rushed in._

_It was just... The little futon was so much more comfortable than the hard-packed earth._

_He allowed himself another thirty-count of comfort before throwing off the thin sheet and surging to his feet, throwing himself into the discomfort as quickly as he could._

_An extended groan tore its way from his throat as he stretched his arms above his head and arched his back, listening as his spine cracked and popped. Then he twisted around, angling his hips to try and shake the ache from them._

_After another few minutes spent greeting the day (which included brushing his teeth and_ **_oh_ ** _how he’d forgotten what a pleasure that was), he emerged from the shed and made his way quickly across the garden center towards the small building at the front. Being that it was located in the middle of London proper, Eve’s Eden was compact, with only two true greenhouses and a small outdoor stand of fruit trees. At the center of the outdoor space was a large pear tree, currently laden down with fruit. He realized just after passing it that he didn’t have to refrain any longer and doubled back to pick three pears, immediately biting into the first and holding it between his teeth as he shoved the other two in the overwrought pockets of the trousers he’d been obliged to borrow from the shelter last week after his last pair had finally fallen to little more than threads._

_That was another thing he was going to buy, he thought, trousers. Trousers that fit him and didn’t feel like he was wearing a tent. He never felt quite like himself when his legs weren’t free to move and bulky, cargo monstrosities made his skin itch and his hands dance and his chest feel tighter than he thought clothing probably should do and so he was going to buy a good pair and if that meant the blanket and the area rug had to wait then that was alright._

_Crowley frowned to himself as he mentally calculated what would cost what and adding it up in his head, no matter how he spun it, food would be the most important - he could buy a water bottle to keep filling up and a couple of gallons of water on the side for cooking would be cheap as well. Hell, he could probably use water from the hose if it came to that. A blanket would be good and likely doable if he went second-hand shopping instead of buying new, and if he couldn’t get a proper rug that way then he would at least be able to splurge on some of those mass-produced packs of socks from Tesco when he went for cheap groceries. A thought interrupted his happy musings of warm toes, stopping him in his tracks._

_Eve– Eve might not mind if customers couldn’t necessarily tell–if he got a sufficiently baggy sweater from somewhere and grew out his hair a little more–he could wear a skirt. They wouldn’t be as cumbersome as the damned cargos he wore currently or grate on his skin. Long skirts would probably be just as comfortable as the tight jeans he preferred. Cooler too, he thought, the greenhouses were comfortable now, but he knew they would be unbearable in the summer. A breeze on his legs would be a welcome change._

_He realized that he’d been dithering outside the main building for quite some time and took a deep breath to calm himself._

_Eve wasn’t going to throw him out, he thought. She’d seemed tough, but not cruel, not someone who would give him hope that he might have any sort of future at all only to snatch it away._

_She wasn’t like that, wasn’t like-_

_She was different. He just knew it._

_So, he straightened the hem of his threadbare t-shirt, quickly giving up on seeming any more presentable than he had yesterday in it, and strode in as if he were the picture of confidence. Eve raised an eyebrow at him from behind her cuppa, slow and still a little sleepy from the morning haze that settles down habitually over cool London mornings._

_“Mornin’.” Crowley sketched a sheepish wave, unsure exactly where he was supposed to fit here (other than beneath the apple tree where Eve had found him sleeping last night). Nothing else seemed like it would know what to do with a Crowley-shaped person next to it, none of the other rows of plants and flowers looked like they could handle his bumbling hands sitting next to their pristine plots. He didn’t know what to–_

_Crowley was shocked out of his inward spiral by Eve’s hand on his bicep, squeezing just tightly enough to be reassuring instead of scolding. She smiled at him like someone might smile at a dog on the side of the road, bleeding from where it was hit and left for dead. Crowley grimaced in his head, the metaphor was apter than he’d wanted to admit._

_“You know what weeds look like?” Eve asked him, all her pretenses of grumpiness up front at full force, though to Crowley it felt like a welcome, somehow._

_“Y-yeah, of course I know what weeds look like!” Crowley stuttered, what little pride she’d let him scrounge up the night before when he’d gathered up his bag and stood to leave when she’d found him curled up behind the roots of the tree furthest from the door was coated his tongue like lead. Heavy and tripping. It dripped down the back of his throat and the molten, toxic metal burnt on its way down, churning his stomach until he was nauseous and coated his heart so that it felt like bands wrapped around it and every beat and every breath pressed uncomfortably tight._

* * *

**_Ping!_ **

Crowley’s phone chimed and he sucked in a surprised breath, tearing himself from his uncomfortable recollections on how he came to be here, nearly a decade ago. It would be nine-and-a-half years soon. And almost ten years exactly from when he’d been kicked out in the first place as a teen. 

Crowley blinked at his messages unseeing, lost in his thoughts of Eve and her garden center. And then he blinked some more after he set the phone down, dazed with a stupid grin threatening to overtake his face. How bold! And not in a disgusting way like some people were on dating apps. “ _To see if we mesh well,_ ” Crowley’s grin ticked up a bit further at the thought. Posh and poncy, but not in a holier-and-richer-than-thou way, and he could already tell he’d like this Azira guy. Quickly he typed out another reply.

[Anthony Thursday 12:05 pm] _I’m certainly interested in meshing with you._

He cringed a little after it was sent, not having stopped to think about the fact that he might be coming on a bit strong, especially considering he was _just_ thinking about how pleased he was when Azira’s own boldness didn’t devolve into gross innuendo. Crowley sighed and ran a hand over his face, leaning on his elbow at the front counter. 

Well, if he’d ruined it, he’d ruined it. Better for it to happen now than--

He jumped, just a little, when Jr slithered over his forearm and into his hand. Crowley’s frown fell from his face and a soft smile lifted the corners of his mouth. It wasn’t a smile he’d let anyone see and if, by chance, they did and happened to mention it later, he’d accuse them of lying. _Of course_ , Anthony J. Crowley, garden center employee and neighborhood ne’er-do-well, didn’t have feelings outside of vague annoyance, certainly nothing so soft as that. But, just now, it was fine because Jr wouldn’t tell anyone. 

He’d found the tiny, grey garter snake years ago. He’d only been working for Eve Sargon for a scarce five days and was in the humid greenhouse (introducing himself to the orchids) when he'd heard her shriek. He’d dropped the little plastic mister and bolted for the retail space, nebulous fears of Beelzebub or– or he wasn’t really sure what, whiting out rational thought. He’d burst through the door, terrified something had happened only to find Eve perched upon the large rocking chair in the corner, jabbing at the ground with the bristled end of a broom.

“Miss Sargon?” Crowley had asked. He was still nervous around her and couldn’t make his mouth say ‘Eve’ no matter how many times she asked. It would not, in fact, be until she threatened to throw him out on his ear if she hear 'Miss Sargon' one more time that he managed to make the switch. 

“Good, you’re here!” Eve had snapped. “Get this damned thing away from me!” 

And Crowley had looked and saw a tiny snake, no larger than the length of his hand, curled upon itself in the ground just in front of the chair’s rockers. He’d looked between the snake and Eve and said, “ _That_?” 

He would later learn that Eve could not abide snakes of any sort, not after one belonging to some cousin or another had tried to constrict her as a small child while they played next to the apple tree out back of their grandparent’s house. (Relatedly, she also wasn’t a fan of apples and could only laugh uncomfortably when someone inevitably commented on her name and her dislike of snakes and red, shining fruit.)

When he realized Eve was quite serious, Crowley had stepped across the space between them and slipped his fingers under the tiny snake’s coils, scooping it into his cupped hands. It wrapped around his fingers almost immediately, clearly glad for both the rescue and the direct warmth he provided in the drafty retail space (the ancient heater had fought valiantly against the crisp English autumn). He’d been smitten by the creature ever since. He’d done a bit of research and was delighted to find that garter snakes ate slugs, among other garden pests, so instead of chucking the things as far as he could manage after picking them from the plants, he began locking them up in a sealed tank and keeping them alive to dole out to the snake. As the snake grew larger, it started to seek Crowley out as an easy source of food without having to hunt for it and, eventually, Crowley ended up naming it.

Or rather, Eve named it–she stuck out her tongue at them about six months after the Rocking Chair Incident, and said, “You and that bloody snake, Crowley. Should just call him Crawly Jr, since you’ve practically adopted him.” And Crowley absolutely agreed, wriggling his fingers from across the greenhouse at her, the snake coiling happily around them to steal his warmth. In fact, he’d agreed so much that (to Eve’s _utter delight_ ) he named the garter snake Anthony Jay Crawly Jr and even tagged on an Esquire so that everyone else knew he kept a respectable job around these parts in pest disposal. 

(That Christmas, the first Crowley spent with Eve, Crawly Jr had received a laminated employee badge and Crowley had been obliged to go make them more cocoa immediately because something in the last batch had made his eyes water.)

Currently, Crawly Jr was hissing up at him and wrapping around his bicep to crawl up his shirt and curl around his neck. Didn’t want food then, just warmth. Crowley knew snakes weren’t the sort of creatures that _loved_ , he’d read an article some time ago that reptiles were too basic a creature to feel much other than desires for warmth, food, and safety. All the higher sorts of complex emotions like care and love didn’t evolve until mammals were about. Sometimes, privately, Crowley thought he’d have liked to be a snake for that reason. Wouldn't have to worry about all the terrible sorts of ways love could change you and how it almost made you glad for the ways it hurt, glad to have felt anything at all.

But that was fine, he couldn’t ask Crawly Jr to give him more than the snake was capable of, he thought to himself bitterly. You didn’t ask your pets or your friends or your partners or _god forbid_ your kids to be anything but themselves. But then again, those sorts of thoughts didn’t do much for someone, so he tried to push them from his mind and continue on with his day. His phone chimed again and he let Crawly continue to wrap around his neck as he picked it up with a maudlin tilt to his lips.

[Azira Thursday 3:00 pm] _Tickety boo! Would you like to join me for coffee today, at 7 pm? There is one that has the best tea near the university, it’s called Monmouth’s Tea and Coffee!_

[Anthony Thursday 3:00 pm] _Great, sounds great._

Crowley, once again, grimaced at how bloody eager he sounded. Could he _really_ be expected to help it though? Sure, this guy, Azira, would probably just be hitting him up for a one-off, but at this point Crowley was willing to go for it. Besides, when was he ever going to get the chance to fuck someone so _pretty_ again? Or, if everything went right and he was very lucky, be fucked by someone so pretty. 

With that thought in mind, he turned to the outfits laid out across his bed. It was all about the message he wanted to send; excited but not overeager, cool but not aloof, casual but not disheveled. A careful balancing act that was all meant to tell the intended recipient _hey, I’m down for whatever but also I’d really like to do this one specific thing if you catch my drift._

Crowley went through his meagre wardrobe and quickly discarded anything he regularly wore for work. They all had the garden center aroma ground into them. So did all the rest of his clothes, to be fair. He liked the smell of fresh green things and dark soil, but he knew not everyone would. Especially at such a posh coffee shop. With the mirror angled down just so behind his kitchen sink (as his place was too small for a sink in the bathroom as well) he could see his entire outfit. It was a bit small, but it would do. Had done, at least, though some of the water spots made it difficult to see… so he cleaned those off and shuffled some containers on his counter and got caught up in cleaning for a couple of minutes before chiding himself for procrastinating on clothing. He took a moment to set his phone alarm for 6 o’clock. Just in case he got caught up.

It just- it felt like it had to be perfect for some reason. Maybe because this was the first date he was going on in a long while, maybe because Azira was gorgeous. Who knew really. 

(Crowley knew, it was both. And the fact that he was a little head over heels already, like a fool, from their conversation.)

So he tried on a few outfits, different color variations of the same button-down shirt and varying tightness of pants from painted-on to relaxed boot cuts. Despite his flurry of changing and changing again, he ended up in something nearly identical to what he usually wore, if a tad more gussied up. 

All of his choices were carefully cultivated to look effortless. Tight black trousers, to show off his ass and black snakeskin boots with a bit of a heel to shape his legs even more. His shirt was a dark jewel tone purple button up and over it he wore a black vest, open the buttons undone. To top it all off he pulled on his usual thick, silver chain and his worn-in black leather jacket. 

The purple was more color than he usually wore but Crowley decided that he wanted to make a suave and cool impression rather than trying-too-hard-to-be-edgy goth. His jacket was one he could nonchalantly walk with slung over his shoulder with his hand at the collar to expose his forearm and look cool without hating it after a couple minutes (his forearms with the half-finished tattoos and his legs were pretty much all he had going for him, so by god he was going to show them off). 

He stood in the doorway of his shed and took a few deep breaths. He looked as good as he could and he knew it, no reason to worry about it anymore. He shoved back the worries and bustled into the greenhouses, immediately donning a wry smile at the sight before him. 

“Junior!” He cried in faux irritation, plucking the 45cm garter snake from where he’d curled around some expensive orchids.

“Now, I _know_ there’s nothing for you in there, kid. I watch them myself. You’re not allowed in the orchids, they’re _expensive_. Can’t have you scarin’ away customers from lookin’.” Crowley chides gently, letting Junior curl and twine in his fingers and stuff half his body into Crowley’s warm jacket. “Come on, might as well earn your keep then, we’ve got to fix the dehumidifiers in the dryhouse. The cacti are getting cranky about the weather. You too, I bet, ‘s cold out.”

Crowley carefully pulled the snake from his hands and moved him to his neck to curl there to soak up warmth so he’d have his hands free. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with the dehumidifiers, but they’d been jury-rigged from some scraps and a handful of online video tutorials he still had saved on his phone, so he could probably figure it out. Did they still have the plans he had Eve draw out for them? It might be easier if he could take a picture on his phone and mark off what he’d already looked over… 

Lost in his thoughts, a flash of color reflected in the dryhouse windows caught the corner of his eye and he stopped. Oh right, his shirt, purple today. But the reflection in the window was a smidge better than his one-room shed out back, so he took the time to pull his hair up into a bun. Nah, that was too pretentious, it looked like he was trying to make it a topknot or something. Alright, try again, what about just down? No, that left his hair lifeless and flat, barely any curl to it anymore… Crowley attempted to rekindle the ringlets his hair naturally fell into around his finger but it just turned into a scruffy looking wave. 

Next he plaited it, adding a couple of braids for volume but it ended up looking haphazard and slovenly, like he couldn’t be bothered to actually pull his hair back. Then Crowley tried one large braid but it pulled at his temples and along his head in a way that indicated he’d have a migraine in an hour flat. And _then_ he tried a much looser braid but too many hairs stuck out at odd ends because he cut his own hair like a fool. (It wasn’t really, foolish, it saved plenty of money and Eve made sure he didn’t miss anything, usually he was pretty good at it actually even when he gave himself long, swooping bangs every so often.) Nothing to be done about it, he supposed morosely, until he ran out of that terrible shampoo. Apparently that’s another something he’ll have to budget for too, well, maybe. Depending on how the date went.

Annoyed with it all he huffed and pulled at least the top half of his hair into a small bun that didn’t seem too pretentious or hipster (hopefully), and left it at that. Eve, who had come into the dryhouse with her tea in hand to check on his progress with the dehumidifiers, smirked and knocked on the glasshouse doorframe. Crowley jumped, startled, and sucked in a hissing breath.

“Old lady!” He yelped, hand clutching at his chest, “I’m too young for a bloody heart attack!”

Eve, always pleased to bits when she was able to sneak up on him, just laughed uproariously. It didn’t happen often, and it certainly hadn’t happened when he’d only just started living in the back. Crowley had been too nervy and wound up in those days, but Eve smiled softly to herself whenever she thought about how far he’d come, feeling more comfortable in his own skin and around other people. 

"Jeans that tight and you're worried about a heart attack instead of a blood clot?"

“Well, yeah,” Crowley grinned large enough that he knew his canines showed, “But, a blood clot won’t kill me now would it?” Or, at least, he thought they didn’t kill–to be honest, he wasn’t the best at anything medical.

Eve laughed, “Boy, if you die in this greenhouse, I can guarantee it's not gonna be a heart attack that does it.” She shot a rather pointed look at the snake contentedly coiled around Crowley’s neck as if to say _that great beast will do ye in_. Crowley stroked Junior’s scales and grumbled back at her, pulling faces not entirely unsuited for a gargoyle or grotesque carved for the roofs and vanes of old cathedrals, but, as he continued across the space there was a lightness to his step that Eve couldn’t overlook. 

She took a sip of her tea to hide her smile as Crowley turned back to his work on the dehumidifiers and muttered loudly and pointedly about mean old hags. 

It was nice seeing Crowley in a good mood.

* * *

“So you see,” Aziraphale said gesturing to the image projected on the screen beside him, “We really can’t trust restoration work older than the last few decades.” He took a step towards the image of a book projected up on the screen, realized he was blocking the image and stepped back again, chuckling sheepishly to himself and inviting the students to laugh along with him. It was a mistake he made numerous times each lecture, always eager to point at the images he showed then and never able to remember to point on the overhead projector itself rather than the large screen. The students did not laugh with him. Though, he supposed, they also did not laugh _at_ him and he should probably consider that a victory. 

“Right,” he said, struggling to gather his scattered thoughts once more. “As I was saying,” he used his stylus to gesture to the delicate staining along the spine of the illuminated Book of Hours they’d been examining for the last few weeks. “Conventional wisdom in the mid-eighteen sixties said that one should leave all possible original materials and supplement them with contemporary glues. Can anyone tell me why that was ill-advised?” 

He looked out at the class, squinting against the brightness of the overhead projector to try and see if anyone looked willing to answer. Silence fell. He swallowed and shifted his weight between his feet, fighting back the nerves that wanted to rise up. He knew he wasn’t the most interesting lecturer and that many of them didn’t care about books or restoration or any of that (though he couldn’t say he understood why, who wouldn’t be fascinated by the slow interaction of acids and paper and ink and weather and the human hand?). 

Perhaps it wasn't the material that bored the students, he thought, maybe they would like learning this if only he was a better lecturer. He knew he was boring and hard to follow, that he got caught up in tangents and little historical stories that just weren't relevant. One of the shadowed students coughed into the silence and he resolved to be better about that, to stay more on topic. 

“Anyone?” he asked, “Come one now, I know we talked about this last week! Look here,” he pointed to the stained sections of vellum again, “How might these sorts of stains-”

A quiet bell rang through the classroom and before Aziraphale could quite realize what was happening the students had already packed their bags and begun to file from the room. 

“Remember your essay drafts are due to me by tomorrow if you want feedback!” He called absently to their retreating backs as he wondered how the hour had once again escaped from him. The other student lecturers did not have this problem, he thought, they managed to get through their planned material and their students were engaged. So, he knew it wasn’t the material at fault, clearly there was something wrong with his teaching style (with him). But, for the life of him, he could not figure out what that might be. He just knew he needed to be better than he was.

 _Ever higher, ever better._ That was the family motto, right? He grimaced and began gathering his own items. He had about fifteen minutes to cross-campus and slide into the back corner seat he’d claimed as his own in the large astronomy lecture hall. The transparencies were scattered all over the place, but he worked as quickly as he could to put them in some semblance of order as he shoved them back into their folder. Then he shoved the folder in his satchel and, pausing only to flip the overhead projector off, darted from the room. 

The trip across campus was nowhere near as pleasant as his morning’s had been, though it was through no fault of the campus itself or the students that thronged around him. He dreaded arriving at his destination as strongly as he dreaded being late or not arriving at all. 

Aziraphale was not used to feeling incompetent - no, wait, that wasn’t right. He was quite used to feeling incompetent, he need only visit one of his siblings or call his parents to experience that. But, he’d never before encountered the feeling in an academic context. That was his one saving grace, he’d always thought, he might be awkward and overweight and not worth much of anything to anyone, but he was _clever._ And, really, what more did he need to be? 

What more did he deserve to be? 

He’d had an easy life laid before him and was taken by his own _cleverness_ that he’d turned away from it in favor of some fantasy of furthering human knowledge. But, right now he couldn’t even manage to protect human knowledge, much less come up with anything of his own. 

He reached the astronomy building and hefted his bag higher on his shoulder, checking the ancient pocket watch he’d received on acceptance to the university’s accounting program. Good, he’d made good time (and was only a tad out of breath). He paused to sip some water at the closest fountain before pulling the lecture hall door open and sliding into the single open seat at the back. 

“Mr. Fell,” the professor drawled from the dias. “How lovely that you made it on time today, and not even out of breath. I’m honored.” 

Aziraphale supposed he should be grateful no one reacted, that there were no titters or people nudging each other or whispering while looking at him, but really all he could feel was the burning flush of embarrassment. Because he _knew_ that if Professor Avgerinós was in _this_ sort of mood then today was going to be miserable. 

So, he ducked his head and pulled out the crisp notebook he’d bought specifically to audit this course. He’d been so excited, he thought as he brushed his hands across the notebook’s cover, no, eager, to learn new things. He’d been determined that he would audit this course and learn all there was to learn about historical astronomy and be prepared to delve into the respiration of the seafarer’s star charts, ready to actually do what he was meant to be doing. 

He didn’t feel that anymore, didn’t feel anything save stomach-churning dread each time he thinks of the equations he didn’t understand or glanced up at the stars at night. He’d taken to pulling his curtain closed as soon as evening came, afraid that he’d be unable to sleep for worrying if he saw the stars. 

The large clock at the front of the room clicked over to the new hour and Professor Avgerinós pulled out his stick of chalk, approaching the board. 

“Today we will be moving into the calculation of stellar distances based on their relative observable positions from Earth,” he said, northern accent drawing out the vowels in ways that made Aziraphale’s skin itch. Professor Avgerinós drew the chalk across the board in a large circle, then placed a dot on opposing sides of the circle and another in the very center. He labeled the center dot ‘sol’. 

“In order to calculate the distance to a star we utilize something called the parallax angle,” Avgerinós went on. He took a few steps along the board and added a fourth dot. Then, he drew a line between each of the dots on the circle and the newest one, creating a large two-sided triangle. 

“Now, I’m sure you all did the reading and took excellent notes,” Avgerinós said, “Who wants to fill in the labels for this chart?” 

This was what Aziraphale hated most about this class. Far be it for him to judge someone as accomplished as Professor Avgerinós, but he did not think it was fair to ask students to get up in front of everyone and test them on knowledge they’d only learned in the dense readings he assigned each night. Aziraphale had spent nearly three hours wading through the reading for this lecture and had no idea how he might label the diagram. There hadn’t been anything in it about parallax, he thought, he was sure he’d remember that word if he’d read it. 

“Nobody?” Avgerinós asked, voice smooth and deceptively kind, like he was amused by their reticence. “Surely one of you can help me out up here.” 

It was such a sharp contrast to his own class not twenty minutes earlier Aziraphale thought, his students were bored, not terrified. He didn’t think anyone should be-

“Mr. Fell!” Avgerinós called, “Surely a graduate student of your caliber is eager to show these young pups how it’s done.” 

Aziraphale swallowed. His heart was racing in his chest, thundering away, filling his ears with the noise of it and his mind was a desert of thought. No, not a desert, the void between stars, that was more accurate, apter. He wondered if there was a better name for that emptiness, should he know that word? Would it be relevant to his work? Was any of this relevant or was he putting himself through this for no reason at all? 

“Mr. Fell, come on now,” Avgerinós laughed, and now the other students did react, turning in their seats to look at Aziraphale. “Don’t keep us waiting.” 

Aziraphale wanted to run back to the fountain, surely his mouth was too dry to speak. He couldn’t be expected to manage that with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth like this. He opened his mouth, tried to find the words, tried to find _anything at all_ he might say because he certainly couldn’t go up there. He’d only be forced to admit in front of them that he had no clue what he was doing. 

“I’m-,” his mouth formed the words but his throat had failed to engage, releasing only a puff of air and now sound. His fingers hurt and he realized he had been wringing them. He forced them still and tried again, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know how.” 

“No?” Avgerinós said, arching one eyebrow and having the gall to actually sound surprised, despite having been the one to write ‘disappointing’ on Aziraphale’s last homework assignment. “Well, that is a shame. Did anyone else manage to understand the reading assignment?” 

To Aziraphale’s burning shame, a scattered few hands rose around the room. He’d tried, he really had, it was just- he didn’t understand how they were all getting this so quickly. He watched, feeling rather disconnected from the world, as one of the underclassmen hopped from their chair and easily filled out the chart on the board. 

Aziraphale hoped, deep in the exhausted knot in his gut, that his new tutor was smart enough to help even someone as hopeless as him. 

He needed this, needed to understand this. 

His hand shook for the rest of the lecture, leaving his notes messy and unclear, despite his best efforts.

Eventually, he looked up and the lecture hall was empty. He sighed, he’d been so caught up in trying to write down every word Professor Avgerinós was saying that he’d completely missed the lecture ending. He took up his notebook and shoved it in his bag alongside the transparencies and made his way back across campus, feeling as odd and shaky as he always did after astronomy. 

It was a good thing, he knew, that no one ever came to his office to ask questions or get help on their assignments. He needed the time to decompress from the stress of his own lecture and the haze astronomy always cast over his thoughts. He settled into the creaky old chair he’d ‘borrowed’ from an unused conference room down the hall and allowed himself a bare few minutes to simply breathe, trying to find that peace he so adored about this tiny space he called his own.

He knew most graduate students were not lucky enough to have private offices, no matter how small, but at their first meeting Doctor Haistwell had taken one look at Aziraphale, grinned, and gestured for him to follow. Ens had lead Aziraphale down the hallway to a narrow little space under the large staircase that lead to the third floor. 

“A cupboard under the stairs?” Aziraphale remembered asking, trying his best to keep the skepticism from his voice. 

“Yes, well,” ens had responded, grin not slipped a bit, “Beggars, choosers, and I promise I’m a damn sight nicer than any fictional aunts and uncles.” 

Ens really was. Moreover, Doctor Haistwell had proven time and time again to be not only nice, but also fierce in ens advocacy for Aziraphale and encouraging in their frequent meetings. And, really, this little office had been a godsend because while his cohort complained about their large shared space, Aziraphale need only worry about remembering to pick up his key as he left home. 

It was small, but it was quiet and it was his. He’d brought the chair and a few of his favorite novels from home for study breaks, and even a little plant for a time last semester (it had promptly died because one thing the office did not have was a window). 

Now, ensconced in his chair and finally feeling more centered, he pulled one of his ongoing restoration projects towards himself. This one was from the same private collection as the Book of Hours he’d shown his class earlier, but in far worse condition. He’d been carefully working on piecing a few weevil-eaten pages back together for weeks now as a sort of meditative task and now he lost himself in the repetitive hunt-find-place-glue of it all. 

* * *

Crowley’s phone alarm rang and his head jerked up in surprise. Oh, that time already? Reflexively, he nearly wiped his hands off on his trousers but stopped himself at the last second with a pained sigh. He _really_ ought to wear his apron more often, especially when he was already dressed for the day. Even though he wasn’t doing the most physically demanding work, fixing the dehumidifier was certainly a chore and took up those three hours quite nicely. He left the dryhouse and puttered into the main office and display space. 

“Eve!” Crowley shouted over his shoulder, towards the door hiding the stairs that lead to Eve’s flat, as he ran the water to clean off his hands. He grimaced as he scrubbed his knuckles red and raw, trying desperately to get out the grime from underneath his fingernails. 

“I’m headed out! Ring me if you need anything.” He paused and thought about the way he hoped the evening might so, “Try not to need anything!” Giving it up for good enough, Crowley sighed at his hands. He took a few steps towards the door before pausing. He frowned lightly and reached up to peel Junior out from underneath his jacket collar. The garter snake hissed sleepily and he smirked. “You lazy arse. Can’t be bothered to do your job these days can you? That’s fine, I’ll keep hunting slugs for you. Not like they’re hard to catch up to.”

Crowley delicately lay the snake on the apple tree in the center of the display garden–the one plant in here that wasn’t for sale–and trotted out back to his shed. He picked up his keys and gave them a good toss around his finger with a grin. His Bentley was the only thing of real value he owned-- he’d had a hard time getting it back at first, but the keys were his and the Bentley was his and that was all that mattered. That was all he was going to let matter. Especially after he’d taught himself (through liberal use of the library and youtube videos, and occasionally bribing some mechanics with errand running and candy) how to care for her and keep her up and running. It was, honestly, where most of his money went, but Eve never said anything about it and still let him keep the shed so he wouldn’t worry about it.

Passing through the display room again, Eve greeted him with a raised eyebrow. She looked pointedly at the pants. “Going out like that, are you?”

Crowley scowled theatrically, “Yeah, what’re ya gonna do, _ground_ me?” He managed to keep a sullen look on his face for exactly as long as it took to finish his sentence before snorting a laugh. Eve chuckled too, quietly to herself, her eyes sparkling with mischievous thoughts.

“Sure am, looking like you are, it seems you might be going on a date.” She smiled gently and crossed over to Crowley, holding her arm out for a hug. Without thinking much of it Crowley pulled her into an embrace. If Eve wanted a hug, Eve got a hug, that was just how the world worked. Not that she’d force him into one or anything, but Crowley figured it was quite literally the least he could do. None of her kids–if she had any–visited, nor did any grandkids, and Crowley had heard on a science podcast at some point that people physically _needed_ hugs and touch. 

He didn’t, of course. 

Not that Crowley was _averse_ to touch--well he was a little, depending on the person--but _Eve_ was the one who needed it, obviously. She was old (and not fragile per se) so she needed someone to help out. He did a lot of the manual work in the garden center, more and more of it every year, and it just so happened that sometimes Eve needed hugs just as much as she needed the pallet of fertilizer moved into the back rooms. And that was that. She squeezed back hard and Crowley paid no mind to how the little anxieties that had built up in his shoulders and layered themselves along his spine washed away. That’s why Eve needed hugs, right? Would make sense…

Crowley left the shop behind and crossed the street towards the small carpark across the way. He slid into the driver’s seat of his beloved car, a 1930s 8-litre Bentley and turned the key in the ignition, pumped the clutch a few times as he held down the brake and reveled in the feel of the engine purring through the steering wheel. The 2.5-tonne pile of metal was one of the sturdiest things on the road these days, it had been lightened slightly and wasn’t one of the heaviest to come off the production line by far, but nowadays cars were rarely made with metal chassis, even if they did ramp up to higher speeds than his did. But then again, he was in London, what use was a sports car out here in these packed streets? 

Crowley swerved into the streets, a wide grin on his face as he piloted the 3.5-metre monstrosity through London to the coffee shop mentioned, somewhere in Soho. It wasn’t too long of a trip to be perfectly honest, and he got there nearly thirty minutes before seven o’clock with the way he drove (hey, if he got into a crash he’d win, and _he_ knew _everyone else_ knew his car looked far too nice to chance an accident with, and they were right). He drove a bit longer, wasting some time going around a few blocks until a parking spot opened up that he could fit into, and wasted no time in snagging it despite holding up the street for a few minutes so he could parallel park properly. Not his fault they didn’t leave soon enough to make it to their destinations in time.

He sat in the car for a few moments and counted to 15 seconds, still and taking deep breaths, and burst into motion for the next count of 15 to force his way across the bench seating and out of the car onto the kerb. Alright, he could do this, it was just a date. Sure the man was bloody fucking gorgeous, and Crowley was just… Crowley, but what’s the worst that could happen? Nothing much, especially when the best that could happen was getting his brains shagged out.

With that thought in mind he strode around the block to the front of Monmouth’s Tea and Coffee. His shoulder jerked roughly as someone slammed into it when he looked down at his phone to check the time and he scowled, swearing under his breath.

“Watch it, arseho–” the words died in his mouth and Crowley swallowed thickly. Oh shite, everyone looked far too well dressed for this to be some run-of-the-mill uni coffee shop. What kind of posh bullshite was this? Crowley counted to thirty again, forcing himself to take the handle of the door halfway through and saunter up to the counter to take a look at what a posh coffee shop might have. Hopefully, a plain black coffee wouldn’t rat him out (wouldn’t clean his wallet out). Right, nothing scary about this, it’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about at all, just be _cool,_ Crowley, just be cool...

* * *

Aziraphale had only just managed to reach the wonderfully peaceful place of meditative work when someone knocked on his door. 

“Come in,” he murmured, then when the knock sounded again he cleared his throat and repeated it louder. They still didn’t enter, so he leaned back in his chair and reached over to pull the door open. 

“Oh! Doctor Haistwell,” he said, “Sorry about that, I didn’t realize- are we meant to be meeting?” 

Haistwell was grinning at him (ens was always grinning at Aziraphale, it was disconcerting, no one ever looked that happy to see him, not sincerely). 

“No, we aren’t,” ens said. “I was just headed out myself and was surprised to see your light still on. It’s ten to seven.” 

Aziraphale glanced up at the clock propped against a few heavy tomes on medieval illumination styles (the clock had been liberated from a retiring professor’s office in his first semester, Haistwell claimed it was rightful reclamation of ens own property, but Aziraphale had strong doubts about that given the animosity he’d heard existed between the two). 

“Huh,” he said, “I hadn’t realized. Well, have a good night, Professor.” 

He made to turn back to his desk, eager to complete the page he was working on. He found another scrap that fit the corner he’d been making his way across and carefully picked it up with his tweezers. After a moment, he realized Haistwell was still behind him. He placed the scrap in position atop the thinly brushed glue before glancing back at ens. 

“Can I- Is there something I can help you with?” 

“Azira, it’s nearly seven o’clock in the evening,” Haistwell said with the sort of significant tone of voice Aziraphale knew he was meant to divine meaning from. 

“Yes?” he said, “I’ll be leaving soon.” Really this wasn’t even late for him, he often lingered on campus until far closer to midnight, being rather easily absorbed in his work and also lacking any reason at all to go home. There was nothing much waiting for him besides his personal book collection after all. “Have a nice evening?” he tried when Haistwell still did not budge.

That earned him a raised eyebrow. 

Aziraphale gripped his tweezers tighter, that same feeling of inadequacy as earlier rising in his chest. There was something he was meant to know, the answer to a question he didn’t understand floating in the space between them. 

“I don’t-”

Then, like the latch of a seventeenth-century bible clasp sliding home he understood. 

“Oh,” he said, “Oh! I’m going to be late!” 

He stood and snatched up his satchel, hurriedly shoving his wallet and keys into the outside pocket. 

“Do you mind- the glue,” he gestured to the half-completed page on his desk. “Or rather, I mean-”

Haistwell laughed and waved on hand at him, “Go, go. Run off to meet this tutor of yours, I’ll take care of all this.” 

“Oh, _thank you_ ,” Aziraphale breathed and then he was off, bolting from his office towards the closest exit and the little coffee house just up the street.

* * *

Crowley frowned and pushed away the plate with the slice of cake on it. Stood up, he should have figured this would happen. He sighed heavily and checked his phone one more time. It was fifteen minutes after when _Azira_ said they should meet and Crowley tapped his fingers on the table. Fifteen more minutes, another thirty-count. Then he’d leave. It was way too long to wait to be stood up, to be perfectly honest, but Crowley tended to wait too long and held out hope far past the point he should. 

He leaned back in the chair, so soft and squishy it was hard to get properly comfortable in it. Could just be his hip, but the lack of support in it was starting to make him ache. The shift caused a small brown spot to come into his view on his shirt and he frowned deeper. Fucking hell, nothing was going to go right today, was it? Bloody fertilizer dirt, must have been on Eve when she hugged him. Goddamnit. He licked his thumb and tried to wipe it off, but only succeeded in grinding the stain into the fibres of his shirt. Even napkins and a cup of actual water from at the counter didn’t fix it. 

Crowley gave up. He looked at the time, 7:24 pm. Good enough, this entire thing was a stupid decision, a mess. No one asks someone out on a date after quick replies like that, not unless it was for a quick fuck, but people were on time for those. Best get it through his head and go back home, sleep it off. Maybe Eve would buy that he had a hangover from partying or something instead of coming home early and sleeping until well past his shift. He was due a lie-in this year... 

His head jerked up as a man crashed through the front door, dressed in light colors and creams with a particularly flustered look. It only took a couple of seconds but Crowley recognized him from the Tinder picture. 

“Azira?” He called and waved his hand sheepishly. Fuck, he was pretty in person too, looked exactly like his photo. Except for the overlarge glasses on his head, pushed up, ruffling his already wild hair further, and... were those magnifying lenses attached? They looked bulky, like something straight out of some spy or heist movie. The heroes had just decided they needed to fence precious jewelry and were checking for accuracy, or whatever gem dealers check and then the gem dealer arrives wearing _those things_. 

It was hopelessly, awfully endearing. 

The flustered man turned to look at him and Crowley felt the air from his lungs leave him breathless the moment their eyes met. He felt like he had been gasping for breath for hours, even though it must have only been a second, because Azira’s worried look turned into the sort of smile Crowley would have thought could only be found on Renaissance paintings. 

Oh fuck. He was _fucked_. 

Oh _god,_ he _hoped_ he was fucked.

“I– Hi! Hello,” Crowley fumbled over his own tongue, raking his eyes over Azira. The cream sweater vest with dull brown designs–he would have called it frumpy on anyone else–was obviously well-loved and his tweed trousers matched the brown of the argyle, offsetting the pure white of the shirt underneath and making the fucking oxblood-brown oxfords he wore shine. Not only was this man as beautiful as a bloody angel, he was casual money too. What other sorts of people looked like they walked right out of a ‘50s chic catalog? And pulled it off?! Somehow even the leather satchel over his shoulder screamed money and _matched_ his shoes! 

Well, at least it was obvious he was gay. Thank fuck. Crowley pulled on his most charming smile and sat back down. 

“I wasn’t sure what you might want, so I didn’t get you a drink, but I hope cake is alright?” 

Azira nodded, still catching his breath for a moment, and still smiling. “Oh yes! I love their chocolate mousse here! You’ve got a good eye.”

The breath punched out of Crowley one more time and he could only be happy he hadn’t made a pathetic noise along with his. How in god’s hell was this man real? “Y–yeah, good eye, me. Are you alright? You look like you ran here?” And didn’t that feed his ego, just a bit, or soothed it really, after thinking he was stood up.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Azira said with another smile, “Just eager to get started.” 

Oh lord above, Crowley was going to get fucked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Holidays and Happy Christmas!


	3. Of Creeping Vines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to [sosobriquet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sosobriquet/pseuds/sosobriquet) for the beta!!

The next morning, Crowley woke knowing three things, all of which he was absolutely sure of: 

1. _Certain_ things did not go as he thought they would, and _somehow_ he’s happier for it. 

2\. He has panic purchased a number of astronomy workbooks for rush delivery from the internet. 

And;

3\. He's madly in love and very nearly filled to the brim with it. 

* * *

_12 Hours Earlier_

_Well, at least it was obvious he was gay. Thank fuck. Crowley pulled on his most charming smile and sat back down._

_“I wasn’t sure what you might want, so I didn’t get you a drink, but I hope cake is alright?”_

_Azira nodded, still catching his breath for a moment, and still smiling. “Oh yes! I love their chocolate mousse here! You’ve got a good eye.”_

_The breath punched out of Crowley one more time and he could only be happy he hadn’t made a pathetic noise along with his. How in god’s hell was this man real? “Y–yeah, good eye, me. Are you alright? You look like you ran here?” And didn’t that feed his ego, just a bit, or soothed it really, after thinking he was stood up._

_“Oh, yes, of course.” Azira said with another smile, “Just eager to get started.”_

_Oh lord above, Crowley was going to get fucked._

“Oh!” Azira turned to the counter and Crowley hurried to stand. The coffee was a little expensive here but it was still just coffee and tea drinks. The harried man before him was clearly a bit on the posh side. In fact, something about him reminded Crowley sharply of the peers his parents had always had around, though he quickly shoved that thought away. His date might be posh, but Crowley could still afford to treat him.

“Come on, what do you want? You set the date, so I’ll buy, yeah?” Crowley grinned in a way he hoped desperately was charming and didn’t look desperate at all. The angel-in-human-form beside him fluttered his lashes, obviously pleased at Crowley’s offer, his hand moving towards his neckline as if reaching for a string of pearls or to adjust his bowtie. 

“O–oh, alright. As you please, then.” Azira murmured with an almost-shy smile, following happily after Crowley. 

“What do you want?” Crowley prompted, his voice gruffer than usual as he tried to gather the tendrils of his control ( _get it together, Crowley, it’s been a whole minute and a half_ ). He pulled out his sleek black wallet as they reached the counter, head turned to stare down at Azira. 

Usually, Aziraphale greatly disliked being shorter, being made to feel as if those around him were looking down upon him, but when he glanced away from the menu to see Anthony peering down at him there was no feeling of quiet gloating or intimidation. It felt like–it felt _warm_ in a way he wasn’t quite sure how to quantify. Like a towel fresh from the dryer or the first sip of his favorite tea on a cold day, like being surrounded by gentle arms. 

He decided not to think on that too much, this wasn’t that sort of meeting after all. He looked back to the menu, scanning the cafe’s offerings. 

If his eyes drifted back towards Anthony a few times before he caught them, well, he was only human and Anthony _was,_ well... He was certainly the most attractive astronomy tutor Aziraphale had ever seen. 

After a few minutes, Anthony cleared his throat, an amused smile curled at the corners of his mouth. Aziraphale realized he’d been staring just a bit. 

“Oh!” He said, trying to recover his composure. It seemed he was destined to be flustered and slow all day. “Right, yes. A café au lait, please! With just a bit of room left.” He held his fingers apart a few centimeters for the barista to see what he meant. With how much sugar he liked to add, it needed the extra room. Anthony raised an interested eyebrow at the order, but didn’t say anything or look too terribly judgemental. He paid in cash, and dropped a large enough tip that Aziraphale couldn’t help but take casual notice. 

“So,” Crowley began as they moved around to the open area at the end of the counter to wait. He cleared his throat awkwardly, suddenly feeling shy behind his dark glasses. “How was your day, um, Azira? Am I pronouncing that right?” He tried for cool and suave, but better to ask about the name than say it wrong, right? Right. Definitely. No matter how uncomfortable he might be, there was no reason to get someone’s name wrong. The ghost of the slimy feeling he got around Lucien trailed up his spine and he shoved it back into the same compost pile in which he’d buried the thought of his parents. 

Azira smiled at him, his expression easy; bright as a new star and just as warm. Crowley’s breath punched out of his lungs. It was fine, he was fine. 

He’d be fine. 

_Fuck._

“Yes, you pronounced it right,” Azira said, “It’s a nickname actually, since my name is longer and harder to say for most people.”

“Oh? What’s your full name?” Crowley replied, the eagerness in his voice belying his attempt at nonchalance as he slumped artfully across the counter where they waited for their coffee order to be deposited. “I’ve got a talented tongue. I bet I can manage it.” 

Attempt at nonchalance failed. 

“Aziraphale. Aziraphale Fell.” Aziraphale turned to peruse the selection of sugars and honeys to avoid the highly improper non-academic thoughts those words elicited. It was lower than base for him to think anything of that sort when Anthony was clearly so eager to help him with his astronomical woes. 

“Aziraphale? That _is_ a long name,” Crowley murmured low, half under his breath as the name echoed through his head, ricocheting around and embedding itself at the back of his mind. He recognized it somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where… Ah, well, he’d think of it later. It didn’t seem very important next to the way Aziraphale had just lit up; a beacon so bright, so warm, Crowley had to resist the urge to check if his hair hadn’t just caught fire. 

“Yes! Exactly like that!” _Hellfire,_ Crowley thought, did- did he just _wiggle_? Oh lord, Crowley groaned in the privacy of his head, that was _adorable_ and he was mad about it.

“Ezra!” The barista called, mangling Azira’s name far too cheerily for Crowley’s liking, making him jump at the sudden noise. He realized he’d been a bit lost in thought, though really who could blame him after being blindsided by how utterly cute Aziraphale was. It wasn’t often he found himself attracted to men who might qualify as ‘cute’, and yet, here he was suddenly fighting the wild urge to grab him and hold him tight against his chest, like a bunny. 

He resolved to never mention that thought aloud. 

_Ever_. 

Eve would let him _die_ before she stopped mocking him. She might even raise him from the dead to get in once last jab about him being so utterly useless. 

Azira took his drink from the barista and proceeded to upend the glass jar of raw sugar over the creamy drink, stirring as he poured. After a few seconds he paused, tapped the metal spoon against the ceramic and took a sip, closing his eyes even as he released a low groan of pleasure. 

Oh, that was going to be a _problem_ if he kept doing that. Crowley had chosen tight pants but they were feeling far tighter all of a sudden. He shifted his weight back and forth a few times, trying to encourage blood to begin flowing to the rest of his body once more. 

“Alright, let’s head back so no one sharks the cake.” Crowley winked behind his sunglasses and immediately regretted it as he realized the dark lenses meant all he’d done was bob his head in a sort of odd little bird tilt, instead of projecting the sort of suave, _Bond—James Bond_ attitude he’d been aiming for. 

“Oh!” Aziraphale exclaimed, eyes widening and mouth a perfect ‘o,’ which really was unfair, Crowley thought, considering all the scenarios that popped into his head at that look. All of the things he could do to pull that look from Aziraphale again, perhaps with a bit more noise, perhaps with eyes screwed shut in pleasu– _Nope_! Not right now! Crowley smacked his thighs and stood up from his slouch at the sugar and cream station by the coffee bar. 

“Come on then,” Crowley started forward, dodging a distracted student without thinking about it as he turned to slink back to the table he’d grabbed earlier. It still held their cake, though it also appeared to have garnered a few eyes that were thinking about usurping their seats.

"Oh... _sugar_!" Aziraphale cursed under his breath, face pinched and upset as the student Crowley had dodged managed to shoulder-check him, jostling him enough that the sweet-as-sin coffee splashed over the sides to burn his fingers.

“Tch,” Crowley hissed, hurrying over and plucking the coffee from Aziraphale’s hands, grabbing napkins from the bar in the same smooth motion. He pulled Aziraphale to the side so neither of them would be bumped into again and fussed over Aziraphale’s hands, which had already turned pink from the scalding coffee and milk. 

“Now, I know I don’t particularly stand out in a crowd, but really people can be so rude sometimes! At least _notice_ if you’ve bumped into someone!” Aziraphale waved his hands—still gripping at damp napkins—and scowled, adorably, during his short rant. Crowley could do nothing more than watch with rapt attention. 

Crowley was having a realization, he thought, the slow dawning of understanding that in the five entire minutes since he’d first lay eyes on Aziraphale he’d gone from _please oh god please fuck me senseless_ to _I’d like to wake up next to you and bring you scones_ (with a hefty side helping of _oh and if fucking is still on the table, well, there’s this lovely table here...)._

“I think you’re plenty noticeable.” Crowley murmured, canting his head away to hide what flush might have colored his cheeks and the tips of his ears at his uncharacteristically forthright words. He then grabbed Aziraphale’s wrist and brought it back down to be inspected. “Looks like you’ll be fine. Lucky only a bit got on you.”

“Oh! Well,” Aziraphale began, flattered and trying desperately not to show it. He knew he was failing miserably considering the smile he knew brightened his face at the compliment, and how red his cheeks had become at the softness of Crowley’s hands covering his own, “Most people actually think I’m a bit forgettable, if I’m being honest…”

* * *

_6 Years Ago_

His shoulder ached, complaining viciously against the overladen messenger bag he’d hauled across the grounds from the staff garage. He’d insisted Brother Francis could drop him off down there rather than driving all the way up to the house and back down again and was now regretting his generosity. He’d not been ho- back to the manor in nearly a year and had entirely forgotten how sharply the hills rose from the edge of the grounds. 

“Aziraphale!” A heavy hand thudded down on his shoulder, gripping tight and reeling him in. He had only a bare moment to glance up and see Gabriel’s broad smile before his hair was being ruffled and he was trying to duck away. Gabriel did not let him go and after a moment he gave up, accepting his eldest brother’s overly physical affection. 

“Hullo, Gabriel,” he muttered, leaning as far away as he could without pulling against Gabriel’s hand (he’d learned years ago that to do so would only lead to a lecture and more trouble than the temporary discomfort was worth). 

“Finally come home to see us, have you?” Gabriel asked, dragging him towards the main house with the sort of implacable, irresistible pressure Aziraphale always forgot Gabriel was capable of until he was home. 

“Er, yes,” Aziraphale said, “I know I didn’t come back for the winter holiday, but I thought Mother understood. It was a rather important internship, though I suppose I could have-”

They had reached the doorway. Gabriel ruffled his hair once more, digging his knuckles into Aziraphale’s scalp, before releasing him and stepping away. Aziraphale tried to resist the urge to rub at his head. He knew he should appreciate Gabriel’s affection, no matter how uncomfortable it made him, because so many people’s siblings didn’t like them at all. He was lucky his family put up with his awkwardness and oddities and all the shameful little quirks he couldn’t seem to rid himself of no matter how hard he tried. 

Once in the house Aziraphale ducked away to drop his bag on a side table in the drawing room, sending a quick smile towards the maid currently dusting an ancient silver samovar. 

“Hello there,” he said quietly. He could hear Gabriel’s booming voice moving away from the foyer towards the formal den. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Azira.” 

She smiled at him before looking away again, tucking a flyaway behind her ear, “Pleasure, sir,” she said, “I’m Rebecca. Are you a friend of Gabriel’s?” 

Aziraphale chuckled, “No, I rather think not.” A thought occurred to him- his family never used the shortened version of his name and here he was introducing himself to new staff with it and expecting them to make the leap themselves. A fool and a rude one at that. “My apologies, I’m Aziraphale.” 

She looked at him, still very clearly puzzled. 

“Ah, Aziraphale Fell?” 

She looked embarrassed and he wanted to soothe that away, it wasn’t her fault at all, he was failing at this entire interaction.

“Are you a cousin?” she asked. 

“Oh,” he said, suddenly feeling a tad distant from the moment as understanding swept over him. There weren’t any family portraits around, there hadn’t been for years and years and clearly none of his siblings had spoken about him since she was hired. That wasn’t terribly unusual, though it made something in his chest twinge. He’d thought Michael at least-

“Do you happen to know if Moth— er, Miss Fell is around?” 

Rebecca shook her head, “She’s gone away to the country estate,” she said, “I don’t believe she plans to return for at least another month.” 

That was- that was fine, Aziraphale told himself sternly, of course, it meant he wasn’t going to see her before he returned to school. But, really, he was an adult, he didn’t _need_ to see his mother. 

It was only- 

Well, he’d rather hoped to talk about some fairly important things with her. The heavy book bag is filled with his accounting textbooks and one other, one he got nervous and fluttery feeling just _thinking_ about. Even from a few feet away its presence is a firebrand across his mind, a flaming sword cutting through to the very core of him. 

He was about to make a decision he knew his siblings would disapprove of and he’d hoped- wanted- needed to know his mother approved, or at least accepted it. 

But, stiff upper lip and all that, he would just have to make do. 

“Thank you,” he nodded to Rebecca and turned on his heel. Perhaps Michael or Uriel would be in a friendlier mood than the last time he visited. 

* * *

“Nah, not forgettable. You look like a, I don’t know, a renaissance painting of an angel? Who forgets meeting one of those?” Anthony said, a wry twist to his lips and words, before jolting to stand up straight and turning once more to the table he’d been seated at when Aziraphale arrived. He tossed a gruff, “Come on,” over his shoulder at Aziraphale.

Aziraphale followed, heart skipping every third beat and his mind replaying Crowley’s words transposed over the sensation of ghostly touches of his hands in a mocking parody of a broken phonograph record. It was, of course, entirely improper for him to be thinking of his tutor like this, remnants of feelings of physical touch imagined all over instead of only on his hands, but there wasn’t much Aziraphale could do to rein in his imagination. Usually, that was only a problem with the anxious thoughts that wanted to spiral away and out of his control, but apparently he was also more than a little prone to flights of fancy when it came to clever red-headed astronomers...

Once at their table, they fell into a comfortable conversation which meandered from the broad strokes of Aziraphale’s studies to what hobbies they each enjoyed in their free time. The banter was free-flowing and rapid and they seemed to spring from topic to topic with ease; first a scathing indictment of the local council’s ‘efforts’ to fix potholes, followed by an in-depth explanation of orchid blooming patterns (during which Aziraphale was delighted to discover that Anthony was not only clever, but rather talented at explaining concepts in an accessible way). 

Eventually, the conversation petered out and Crowley was left staring at the little smudge of sweetened foam at the corner of Azira’s mouth. He wanted to kiss it away, to chase the taste of the cafe au lait and that genuinely obscene amount of sugar Azira had dumped into the mug. He wanted to taste rather more than that, and if he was right about the way Azira’s eyes lingered on his throat when he spoke, well... His chances were looking good. 

“Anthony?” Azira asked and Crowley realized he’d been staring and missed a question. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, “I was- uh, work thoughts.” 

Azira smiled at him. He tilted his head towards the door. 

“Would you like some tea?” Azira asked raising his voice slightly to be heard over the crowd that had slowly filled the cafe over the course of their conversation. He stood from the table. It was an odd question, Crowley thought as they were _in_ a cafe and– The realization of what exactly Azira meant hit him and Crowley’s throat was suddenly a desert; a desiccated, vaguely coffee-flavored waste. He tried to swallow, hoping for enough relief that he might be able to respond. He reached for the glass of water in front of him, his arm moving jerkily—a marionette of desperation. 

“Y-yes,” he finally managed, feeling unaccountably proud that he refrained from saying what he wanted to say (which was something far closer to _Yes, oh god yes, take me back to whatever poncy fuckin' flat your parents are paying for and throw me down in your ten thousand thread count and ruin me, please yes)._

Azira beamed at him once more and Crowley thought that he could easily become addicted to that smile. He thought he would do almost anything to see it again. 

They stood from the table and wended their way through the narrow path between chairs. The cafe was far more crowded than it had been when Crowley arrived. As they made their way towards the door, it dawned on him just how lucky he was that Azira seemed so, well... ‘Down to earth’ was the wrong phrase, given the magnifying glasses and general harried-academic vibe. Perhaps ‘real’? ‘Human’? He wasn’t quite sure, though the exact word did not matter. 

What mattered was that Crowley knew the exact sort of person currently sitting in the tables around them. They visited the greenhouse and bought his most expensive plants, their hands careless on the pots and their eyes skimming across him, too important to rest on someone like him. 

He hated them (hated how they made him feel). 

But, Azira, he wasn’t— he wasn’t like that. He paused just outside the entrance, holding the door open for Crowley. 

“Uh, thanks,” Crowley muttered, feeling unaccountably undone by the simple gesture. “I’m parked just over-”

“Oh, no need for that!” Azira said, his hands fluttering in a dismissively placating sort of way, “I live just up the hill.” He pointed to the gentle slope that led away from the wooded edge of campus back towards the city. Crowley blinked. 

He wasn’t used to not being able to show people his car. People loved his car. Men loved his car. 

How was he meant to—

“Well,” Azira said, “Come along.” And then, without a backward glance, he turned away and started walking up the pavement. Crowley blinked after him, a little shocked at the bold assumption that he would just... follow. And then he realized he was being left behind and hurried to catch up.

* * *

As they approached the door to his flat, Aziraphale was startled to realize they’d kept up an easy conversation the entire walk back. Here in the close press of the hallway just outside his flat, without the gentle breeze brushing past them, he could acknowledge that everything about the other man put him at ease. Even the way he smelled—like damp earth, the dark loam where growing things might take root and thrive—was comforting in a way Aziraphale had not expected a scent could be. He was rather more used to the sharp tang of glues and warmth of old papers, but there was something about a smell so clearly associated with the labor of one’s hands, with nurturing delicate seeds to life, that he could not ignore. He found himself pausing in his search through his messenger bag for his key to take a deep breath, and then another. Drawing in that scent, hoarding it against the times when he would no longer have access. 

“Nice building,” Anthony muttered, peering down the long hall. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. His searching fingers finally brushed against cool metal and he withdrew the key with a triumphant little shimmy. He heard Anthony snort, but it didn’t feel cruel, rather it felt as if he was being laughed with, invited to join in the mirth instead of being the butt of a joke he did not understand. Because, that was the other thing he’d discovered on the walk from the cafe; talking to Anthony was easy, far easier than speaking to students or professors or fellow students or— 

“So this is your place?” Anthony asked, diverting Aziraphale’s thoughts from the rabbit trail of anxiety they wanted to race along. 

“Yes,” he said, suddenly self-conscious of the clutter. He was terrible about throwing things out and nearly every surface was covered in books and tchotchkes and the benign petrol station bric-a-brac he could never seem to resist. He picked up a stack of books, intending to put them on the correct shelf only to find that there were no clear spaces save the one he’d picked the pile up from. Sheepishly, he put it back down, hoping Anthony had not seen that. 

“I’ll go make the tea,” he said, “Please, make yourself at home. We can discuss details and sessions and whatnot over a cuppa.” 

Aziraphale was good at making tea, he knew it in the same way he knew an original printing of Wilde when he held it- instinctive in his gut and heart. When he’d been little his mother had taught him how to best steep the delicate leaves, holding his hand in her own, guiding it from the sealed container of loose leaf to the warm clay pot in gentle arcs. He could still feel it, the smooth rasp of her skin against his, could still hear the raucous noise of his siblings in the background, playing with each other and never him. He hadn’t minded back then, so taken with spending as much time basking in Mother’s glow as he could. 

He was hyper-aware of Anthony picking his way through the shelves in Aziraphale’s den as he worked. 

“How do you take it?” he called as the water came to a boil. He heard an odd, strangled noise followed by a thump in the other room, but before he could ask Anthony appeared in the kitchen doorway. 

“What?” he asked, face unreadable behind the round lenses of his sunglasses. 

Aziraphale felt as if he’d missed something. He held up the teapot. “Tea?” he asked, “How do you like it?” 

Anthony stared at him for a long moment, mouth slightly ajar. The old worries began to creep up- was he being odd? Surely inviting one’s new tutor to your flat wasn’t too strange, but perhaps this wasn’t what you were meant to do? Perhaps Anthony had been expecting to meet at the library and that their conversation would be entirely astronomy based. Perhaps Aziraphale had presumed too much, taken too many liberties and now he had made things unaccountably awkward. 

He opened his mouth to apologize, to promise that they could meet at the library or wherever Anthony wanted from now on if only he would still agree to tutor Aziraphale, when Anthony spoke. 

“Uh, black,” he said, clearing his throat and leaning forward with a smile that showed far more teeth than Aziraphale had expected to see, “I take it hot as sin and strong as hell.” 

Aziraphale nodded and turned away to prepare the mugs. He heard another odd noise from Anthony’s direction, but by the time he’d turned to look, the other man was examining the towering pile of astronomy textbooks on the small kitchen table. He winced. 

“Those were ah,” he sighed and passed the mug of tea to Anthony, “Those were my first attempt to pass this course.” 

“What course?” Anthony was tilting his head further and further to the side as he tried to read down the spines of the books. Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure human necks were meant to bend that way, but if Anthony wasn’t aware he certainly wouldn’t be the one to break the news to him. 

“Ah, apologies,” Aziraphale said. He settled into the chair across from Anthony. “I should have explained better, I was just so excited that someone messaged me back, and so quickly!”

Anthony was blushing now and Aziraphale hurried to reassure him, “No, no, I don’t think you’re any less talented for it! I’m sure your services are in high demand.”

“Erk,” Anthony said. 

“It’s just,” Aziraphale went on, needing to explain now that he’d begun, “It’s just that, oh bother, I’m rather frustrated by the whole affair.”

“What-?” Anthony tried to interject, but Aziraphale was on a roll now. 

“You see, I’m in the library sciences, and while I’m no slouch at the pure mathematics side of things, I simply do not understand a word my astronomy professor is saying. It all makes sense while I’m sitting in the lecture hall, I take what I’m sure are wonderful notes, and then I leave and it’s as if I was writing in cuneiform for all the good it does me. Except! I can actually read cuneiform! That would be easier!”

He took a sip of tea, trying to reel the terrible writhing mass of worries and doubt back into the center of his chest where they could seethe until he lay down, closed his eyes, and they burst free to run roughshod over his mind for the night. 

“What I mean to say,” he murmured into the silence that had filled the room, “Is that I’m very grateful you’ve seen fit to agree to tutor me. I’d hate to put my actual work in jeopardy because I’m unable to grasp the nuances of pair of lox.” 

“Parallax,” Anthony said, clearly reflexively because even he looked surprised by it.

Aziraphale jabbed the spoon with which he’d been stirring honey into his own tea in Anthony’s direction, flinging a thin spray of liquid across the books and papers. Anthony raised an eyebrow at him and Aziraphale felt the blush begin to crawl up the back of his neck. He fought it back by thinking of the smug, expectant look on Professor Avgerinós’ face as he passed back assignments. Anthony clearly knew his astronomy and Aziraphale would be damned if he ruined his chances to pass the class by being so clearly attracted to him. 

He reached out and wiped up the largest of the drops. 

“Right,” he said, “See, that’s why I messaged you. I need help.” 

“I messaged you,” Anthony said, but he sounded lost in thought, “So, let me get this straight. You want to meet, presumably a few times a week? To talk about your astronomy course?” 

Aziraphale grinned. He knew his smile made him look like a bit of a fool, he’d been told that often enough by Gabriel, but he never could seem to help it when unexpectedly happy about something. 

“Oh yes, I mean, that would be wonderful,” he said, “Of course I can pay you, whatever your rate is plus a generous bonus for the short notice and urgent nature of the whole affair.” 

“Right,” Anthony said, “Right. Of course.” He drained his mug and looked up at Aziraphale (or at least Aziraphale thought that was what he did, it really was difficult to see anything past those lenses). “I’ll need your syllabus, ah, a few days to work out a plan, and a list of topics you’re worried about.” 

Aziraphale nodded, pleased beyond measure at the way this evening had gone. 

“Of course,” he said, “I’m at your disposal, you can have anything you want.” 

He smiled at Anthony again, hoping to convey just how grateful he was. He received a small quirk of the lips in return and decided to count that as a victory. 

“Shall we get started?” he asked, “I’ve a few questions about that paralox-”

“Parallax.”

“Right, I’ve a few questions about that if you’re not opposed?” 

Anthony gestured for him to go ahead, so he reached out and pulled the top book down from the stack, flipping it open to the first chapter and finding the section where he felt he’d lost the plot. 

“So, I really don’t understand all this about thumbs and fingers and why sticking them up there does anything at all.” 

“Blessed fu-,” Anthony muttered. Aziraphale winced. He knew he wasn’t the best at this, but really, that was why he’d searched or a tutor. But, perhaps he was just too slow, too bad at-

“No, that wasn’t at you,” Anthony said, suddenly leaning forward, “Sorry, I just- uh, I thought of something I forgot to do at work.” 

“Oh,” Aziraphale did not want him to leave, but if he needed to go, “Please, don’t let me keep you from-”

Anthony waved his hands, “It’s fine,” he said, “I’ll swing by on my way home and take care of it. So, the fingers and thumbs. It’s all about measuring the sky.” He held his arm out away from his chest. 

“You can figure out how many degrees up something is from the horizon using your hand,” Anthony explained. “Like this.” 

Aziraphale decided, then and there, watching Anthony’s lips move as he spoke and his shoulders relax as he leaned forward in his seat, that he possibly might not completely hate astronomy.

Not if it meant he was allowed to spend more time with Anthony. 


	4. Of Choking Ivy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are but humble worms who cannot read calendars please excuse us 
> 
> Huge thanks to [samvelg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samvelg/pseuds/samvelg) for the beta <3<3<3

Crowley awoke to the high pitched, cheery beeping of his four AM alarm with a roiling, pounding headache and a dry mouth. 

That wasn’t terribly unusual really. What was more so was that he had also woken up sprawled over a table, his head pillowed on his arms and his spine pressed against the wood of a mildly uncomfortable chair. It was all truly odd, because the last he checked, he didn't own a chair or table. Groggily, he blinked and dragged one hand out from under his head to rub his eyes, only to nearly knock his sunglasses off his face entirely. Stifling a curse, he leaned back and rubbed feeling back into his hip with his knuckles in a habitual, thoughtless gesture. 

Crowley shifted a bit in the chair, wincing, an arse as bony as his in the hard chair all night meant he was going to be walking a bit stiff all day. He looked over and smiled, feeling well and truly fucked. Though not in the way he'd initially hoped for last night. He'd realized it the night before but now, with the soft light of the streetlamp playing over Azira’s sleeping face, the knowledge settled into his sore bones; the man was positively angelic, even with his face smooshed against the corduroy sofa in a way that would surely leave pillow scars all over his cheeks. Somehow, unfairly, it felt like time stood still. The world slowed its spin, all so Crowley could just sit in peace and _see_ him. So he might take Azira in and adjust the pieces of his life to fit around him like a long awaited puzzle piece, lost for so long you'd thought you'd finished putting yourself together without it only to realize how much better it fit than anything else. 

After a long moment, Crowley wet his lips and pulled himself to his feet, pressing his hand to the table to support his weight until the muscles of his sore hip relaxed enough for him to step away. He knew he had a stupid grin on his face, and only just barely managed to keep himself from tucking a perfectly round curl behind Aziraphale’s ear. He was a clingy, sappy sop and he'd be damned if he put that on Aziraphale. It was wrong, terrible, for him to even be thinking that way when the man was just looking for a tutor. While Crowley was unsure how he'd gotten onto Tinder for that, it was perfectly clear he wasn't interested in Crowley for anything but his brain. 

He snorted. Now that was new. 

The alarm went off again and he hissed a curse as he fumbled to shut off the too-cheery tune that sounded like what a computer might think warbling birds at dawn did. 

Fuck, he had to get to work. And _fuck_ \- his car was blocks away! He was absolutely going to be late. 

He dreaded the merciless teasing Eve was sure to subject him to as soon as he made it in. If he wanted to have time to change out of his too-tight, date clothes before it was time to open the garden center, he needed to go now. His eyes roved around the space, looking for the jacket he’d discarded sometime around midnight so he could gesture more easily. They snagged on Azira’s sleeping face once again, freezing him in place as his brain made a sound that was suspiciously like a record scratch, all thoughts stopped until he could force them back online, reboot the system. 

He was so, _so_ fucked. 

Azira snuffled softly, turning his head back and forth a bit on the rough corduroy, searching for some ephemeral comfort. It would be entirely cruel, maybe even criminal, to wake the man and disturb such a perfect picture. But Crowley didn't want to just leave, not without saying anything. The thought of sitting down to write any sort of note turned his stomach until he thought he'd throw up all the tea from last night. No, that was out of the question-- it'd take him too long and it probably wouldn't be legible anyway. They hadn't exchanged numbers, so he couldn't text. 

With a heavy sigh, Crowley pulled on his jacket, and opened Tinder. 

[Anthony Friday 4:13 am] _Sorry I had to leave. It's early so I didn't want to wake you. Lmk when you want to meet up again, last night was fun._

He hit send and slid the phone into his pocket before he could think about just how much it sounded like he was ditching a particularly good shag after a one night stand. Then he pulled the phone back out, and in an attempt to make it seem like _not_ that he sent his phone number as well. Hopefully, giving Azira a way to contact him that wasn’t Tinder would at least make it seem like he wasn't only trying to hook up. Like he wasn’t trying to hook-up at all. Because that wasn’t what Azira wanted. 

Or, at least he hoped that was how Azira would think of the gesture. He slid the phone away once again, locking it before he could think of something else to send. 

Keys, phone, wallet. Crowley patted down his pockets and assured himself he had everything he needed. 

He was nearly out the door before wheeling back to snag the textbook list from the Astronomy syllabus Azira had pulled out last night. That would come in handy for sure, and he already knew a few texts that would work well in conjunction with the few he recognized by name. They were far past the textbook portion of the stack of papers and dates and homework, so hopefully it wouldn't be needed while he had it. Crowley slipped carefully out of the door, making sure it would lock behind him as best he could, and made his way quietly down to the street in the predawn haze. Normally he hated running, but he could excuse himself the light jog he took up to get back to his baby girl, the Bentley. Besides, it was cold out. 

Crowley made it back to the garden center just before it turned half-five, unlocking the back gate as the first pale rays of light lanced across the corrugated metal. He lifted the gate up when he pulled outward, wincing against the low groan of metal on metal which meant he would need to add oiling these hinges to his ever-growing list of maintenance tasks. Stepping inside and pulling the gate closed, he latched it securely. Once, a few months back, he’d forgotten to do that and his ribs _still_ ached when he turned wrong. 

He skipped half his morning routine, foregoing the shower in favor of splashing some water on his face and peeling himself out of his date night clothes. He slung a loose pair of linen palazzo pants on, allowing them to ride low on his hips, and a well-worn vest top. He’d come back and put on something a bit more customer friendly when he finished the weeding, but right now he needed the comfort. 

Then, finally feeling the odd tension at his core uncoil just a bit, he made his way out to the greenhouses. Just inside the first he paused, checking through the largest three pots. He pulled a few shoots of clover that were beginning to poke through the rich soil, glaring at them before shoving them into his pocket to be deposited in the compost on the other side of the greenhouse. Lifting a large leaf that had been a bit limp yesterday he smiled; Junior was curled into a tight ball beneath the leaf, his small head poking out between two loops of his body. 

“Hey there, bud,” he said. 

The little snake’s tongue flickered out and back in. There was a pause. Snakes didn’t have eyelids so there wasn’t really a change on his face when he woke up from a nap, but Crowley had always felt like he could tell the difference so he knew the second before Junior yawned and began to languidly uncoil. He held out one hand for the snake, grinning as he slowly twined up his arm to his shoulder. 

“Any trouble last night?” he asked once Junior was settled. He finished checking the large pots and began working his way through each of the raised beds, shoving more weed shoots into his pocket as he went. The only response he got was the little tickle of a curious tongue at the pulse point on his neck. “That’s good,” he murmured, “I didn’t actually mean to stay away.” 

He paused to reconsider his words and laughed to himself, “Well no, I mean, I _did_ mean to stay out when I left. But, oh you’re going to love this Junior, he’s looking for a _tutor._ Not a fuckbuddy.” 

He finished the first row and paused to stretch out his hip, trying to stay ahead of the aching tension he could feel trying to snatch at him. Junior moved further up his neck, nestling his head in the messy braid that draped over his shoulder. 

“I mean, I’m going to help him,” Crowley went on, starting down the next row, “He’s in _completely_ over his head.” 

He chuffed a short laugh, “I mean, so am I, arse over teakettle to be honest, but well-” He shrugged and Junior tightened around his neck and shoulders briefly, clinging tighter against the motion.

He fell into a sort of contemplative, exhausted silence as he worked, his mind churning over both the books he wanted to buy and the ways he might explain things to Azira so it was easier for the other man to understand. Every few minutes he had to shake himself as his thoughts turned from the stars in the sky to the way the streetlamps had reflected in Azira’s eyes as they flickered to life. 

He’d always been such a sucker for the stars. 

It was nearly six by the time he finished weeding the humid greenhouse, the weak light of an English dawn finally making its way through the gaps between buildings to shine off the glass walls. He slipped into the main building long enough to deposit Junior in his glass terrarium and flick on the heat lamp before going back out to his shed for a quick shower. Then, carding his fingers through his wet hair, he pulled on jeans and another black vest top and went back to the main building. 

Eve could easily be heard clattering about upstairs, the familiar shriek of the kettle and the slow shuffle of her slippers across the worn wood floors. He flipped the sign on the door to “Open” and settled in behind the register. There were a few tasks which would need doing later, but for now Crowley could take advantage of the quiet hours in the early morning to find the books he wanted to buy. 

With a sigh he booted up the ancient computer and pulled the keyboard towards himself. It was missing three keys (‘r’, ‘o’, and ‘esc’) and the ‘enter’ button always stuck, but it worked and neither he nor Eve had yet been able to justify the cost of a new one. 

He’d heard about new voice-to-text software that could be loaded onto any computer, but it was just so expensive and really, he did okay if he had enough time. A few headaches and the lingering frustration just weren’t worth the cost. (A darker voice hissed in the back of his mind that _he_ wasn’t worth the cost, that there was no point in making things easier for just him when everyone else could just _do_ what the simple tasks they needed to on their own, but he tried to ignore that voice. He knew it was true, of course, but he didn’t have to give it his attention.)

Over the course of the next hour he slowly picked his way through searching for each book online and writing out the prices onto a scrap of receipt paper. The actual writing bit didn’t take too long, he was alright with writing numbers though they still weren’t terribly neat. He’d drawn a little symbol next to each of the books on the syllabus, an old trick for keeping lists straight, and used that symbol next to the prices he found, but the ancient computer screen flickered too brightly and his eyes were already tired from too few hours of sleep. 

The knot at the center of his gut tightened with each price he found. It was... obscene. How could anyone justify these prices? For wood pulp and ink? Crowley would never be able to afford even half of these. How was he meant to help Azira if he couldn’t manage to get the materials he needed? 

He sighed. Across the room he could see Junior stretching out beneath the heat lamp and felt his own exhaustion surge. He supposed he could print out a few exercises off the internet, though Eve’s printer had been broken for months now so he’d need to go to the library. His eyes were heavy, slipping closed against his will so he rested his head on one fist, blearily thinking that it would be alright to rest his eyes for just a moment. There hadn’t been any customers so far this morning, and he didn’t plan to-

He was asleep before he could finish the thought. 

* * *

Aziraphale woke with a leisurely yawn and stretch. The couch was comfortable, it was the sole reason he’d bought it though the beige did match well with his preference for using his clan’s dress tartan. There was something nice about having a piece of his family around, especially when he knew none of them were going to be visiting him anytime soon. He scratched his cheek, rubbing at the imprints the couch had left behind. His chest felt warm, contented and still. In a way it rarely did. He took a deep breath, reveling in the sensation of being so very present even if for only a moment. But the longer he lay there, the sun creeping over first his toes and then his shins, the more his lungs twisted in his chest because it felt oddly like something was... missing. 

He shifted, twisting so he could see the rest of the apartment. Nothing seemed off. The worry twisted tighter, forcing him to lever himself to his feet. The table definitely had all his books when he stumbled over on sleep-clumsy feet and traced his fingers over them. He shuffled around a few papers to feel vaguely productive, about as much as he was any other morning before his tea anyway, and squinted down at them. 

There was something just a little off about the morning, about the silence, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it…

“Anthony!” He crowed happily, snapping up towards the Heavens as his eureka moment crested. Right! His tutor had been here, he vaguely remembered the other man drifting off between one word and the next sometime around two. Where was he? Couldn’t have gone far, could he? 

Aziraphale puttered through his kitchen, putting the kettle on to boil was paramount of course, and then took to poking through the few rooms in the flat he called home. 

No one in the bathroom, no one in his bedroom, no one in the cramped office that was little more than a closet, and no one anywhere on his tiny little back stoop he liked to pretend was a patio, half-filled with wilting plants he kept forgetting to water. Or were these the kind that needed more sun, or perhaps less? He nudged one of the plastic pots with the tip of his houseshoe, wincing at the rasp of dry leaves. 

There was no one but him in the flat. 

No Anthony Crowley to be found anywhere at all. How very, very odd. 

Did he leave? The thought gripped his heart with a terror he was much accustomed to but never quite could get a handle on. His tutor surely thought he was far too unteachable. He’d asked too many questions on things already explained, had been too slow to pick up on things like he should have been able to. Aziraphale’s breathing increased and he grew light-headed out on his stoop facing out to the mews behind the building he lived in.

“What if he just decided it would be kinder this way? Deleted my profile from his on the app? He must think I’m too slow, surely he doesn’t want to be teaching the basics over and over. Why bother with me at all.” He wrung his hands together, twisting his fingers around and around, the muscles straining against each other. The artificial pain was grounding,and he managed to pull himself back in. 

He drifted back to the kitchen, dimly hoping that tea might make him feel a bit more human, that he might be able to stave off the panic he could feel dancing along his fingertips with caffeine and milk and sugar. 

Aziraphale prepared the tea on autopilot, feeling as if his hands weren’t quite connected to his body. He was aware, dimly, that he was overreacting. That this wasn’t anything to be so upset about. But, he had an email from Professor Avgerinós detailing every single error he’d made on his last assignment and the rumors of budget cuts in his ears and he just– He needed this help. He didn’t have time to try and find anyone else. Not before he was forced to either abandon his current dissertation and begin again or leave the program entirely. 

Taking a sip of the tea he grimaced; he’d gotten distracted and added far too much sugar. But he didn’t want to wait for another cup to steep so he steeled himself and downed the cup anyway. The tea did help him to press the pages of his composure back into something vaguely resembling a nicely bound book, and he dragged himself to campus. He had a meeting with Doctor Haistwell and he couldn’t be late, no matter how frayed he might be feeling. He was only happy he didn’t have any teaching today, because he wasn’t sure he could manage to stand in front of students and talk right now, the silence filled by his ramshackle words running away from him (he could feel them even now, pressing against his lips, surging behind his tongue, clamouring, clawing, wanting). 

Doctor Haistwell looked up from ens desk with a smile that faded as soon as ens saw Aziraphale’s face. Ens set ens pen down and gestured to Aziraphale’s customary chair. 

“Aziraphale!” Ens said with that light crease between ens’ brows that Aziraphale was so fond of. “I take it you’ve heard?” 

Aziraphale fell into the chair; he felt wrung out, having tried (unsuccessfully) to outrun his racing thoughts the entire way from his flat. 

“Heard what?” he asked dully, “I only came to tell you I don’t think I have a tutor anymore.” 

Doctor Haistwell frowned at him, “Ah,” ens said, “That... may be a problem.” 

Aziraphale felt the carefully gathered pages begin to flutter again. 

“Why?” he asked, already dreading the answer. 

Haistwell sighed, rubbing the creases from between ens’ eyes and looked up at Aziraphale, and suddenly Aziraphale didn’t want to hear anything ens had to say. He stood. 

“I, uh, I should go,” he said, “I need to– I– I should go find–” He was having trouble catching his breath. Or rather, he was catching his breath too well, holding it in and not letting it escape, trying to wring more and more and more oxygen from the same inhale because he couldn’t let go, couldn’t relax enough to—

“Aziraphale!” 

There were hands on him, large, square fingers wrapped around his arms. 

For a wild moment he thought Gabriel was there, that maybe his brother had finally decided to visit him, but then he was being crushed in a tight hug. Aziraphale could smell the spicy citrus scent which Doctor Haistwell always wore, could feel the cool press of a tie pin etched with hieroglyphics. He realized, as he took in another deep breath, that he could in fact take that breath. The entire experience was so startling, so unexpected, that it had yanked him right out of the impending panic attack. 

It was about then that he realized he was being hugged by his advisor. 

More than that, Doctor Haistwell’s hand was rubbing up and down his back and ens was murmuring soft, wordless platitudes which served only to disrupt the silence of the room. 

He stayed very still, unsure of what he was meant to be doing. 

After a few moments Doctor Haistwell asked, “Will you be alright if I let you go?” 

Aziraphale nodded. 

Doctor Haistwell stepped away, giving him one last firm squeeze before ens went. “Apologies if that made you uncomfortable. ” ens said, “I’m afraid I reacted without thinking.” 

“No.” Aziraphale shook his head. He felt steadier, grounded by the memory of ens warmth and the press of ens’ hands. “I think I needed that. Thank you.” 

Trying to find the calm he could normally summon in this office, he straightened his waistcoat, his fingers running over the worn edges near each button. True peace was still out of reach, but he no longer felt like he was about to stumble over the edge of a cliff. 

“What-,” He paused to clear his throat. “What were you about to tell me? I shouldn’t have interrupted.” 

Doctor Haistwell studied him for a long few seconds, an unreadable expression on ens face. “Aziraphale.” Ens said firmly, “You can always interrupt me when you need to. I’m your advisor, yes, but I also rather care about you as a person.” 

Aziraphale could not help the shudder that ran through him at that but he couldn’t understand why those words lanced through him the way they did. He tried to find the words to define anything he was feeling but came up blank, his mind a waste, a copy of the Voynich manuscript untranslatable even to him. He settled back into the cracked leather chair. 

“I-” he swallowed, unsure why he’d begun speaking at all when he didn’t know what he was going to say. 

Doctor Haistwell took pity on him, “So, I was clearly mistaken about what upset you. If there was any more time I’d wait to tell you but, well, this is all rather time sensitive.”

Aziraphale took a deep breath, gripping the arms of his chair. “It’s alright, please just tell me otherwise I’ll think of something far worse.” 

Doctor Haistwell gave him a grim smile. “Well,” ens said, “It seems that with the recent governmental shakeups the funding that we had originally planned on using to pay for your project has, hmm, well, dried up.” 

Aziraphale nodded. 

“Right,” he said, “so it’s much worse than anything I could think of.” 

Doctor Haistwell shook ens head, “Not at all, I know you said you’re not sure you still have a tutor, but we can find you another one. I’ll also speak to the Chair of Astronomy about this ridiculous requirement, see about possibly getting it waived so you might begin your work without being beholden to that vile man.” 

“Doctor Haistwell!” Despite his roiling emotions Aziraphale was still shocked to hear such talk from the normally mild-mannered Doctor. 

Doctor Haistwell grinned at him, “What? It’s true and I refuse to say anything but the truth. You know me.” 

Aziraphale shifted in his seat. Obviously he agreed with everything Doctor Haistwell was saying, but it would be more than inappropriate for him to say so aloud. After a moment, his advisor took pity on him and changed the subject. 

“Now, tell me why you think you’ve lost your tutor,” ens said. “Let’s see about fixing that problem first. Everything else can come later.” 

So Aziraphale did, he explained about the wonderful night, about how easy it all seemed when Anthony was showing him how it was meant to be. His thoughts lingered on the delicate lines of Anthony’s fingers, on the way they splayed out and flicked through the air, moving more quickly as he became more animated. On the way his own smile had reflected back at him in those dark sunglasses. He’d actually enjoyed astronomy for a few brief hours, actually hadn’t dreaded writing his dissertation. 

He desperately hoped he hadn’t somehow ruined everything. 

* * *

Some hours later Crowley awoke feeling groggy, his headache now more resembling an especially ragged hangover but with nothing fun having happened pre-nap to have warranted it. 

Out of habit he checked his phone for the time and was dismayed to notice he’d been sleeping for nearly 5 hours, head pillowed on his own arms once more. At least he was sitting in a moderately more comfortable chair this time. Well, a moderately more comfortable barstool. Whatever. It was padded and he was used to sitting in it for long periods without aggravating his hip. Except today it hurt anyway, a dull, pounding _ache_ that dug into him, scooping out his energy and willingness to do just about anything he wasn’t obligated to do. And yet... he still couldn’t really regret having stayed over with Aziraphale last night. 

His thoughts turned into a scratched record once more, skipping and stuttering and then continuing on as if the thought of _staying over at Aziraphale’s place last night_ had no effect on him at all. 

“So you’re awake.” Eve said, the smile on her lips somehow soft and sharp all at once - gentle and knowing - not to mention half-hidden by her steaming tea that ought to have fogged up her glasses but knew better than to do anything of the sort. Except she didn’t know did she? Crowley groused in his mind, already plummeting into a foul mood upon the realization that he’d spent the last five hours asleep on the job after staying out late and knowing he was about to be teased about it, and also his hip still _fucking hurt_ , and–and–and—

“Have fun?” Her smile turned into a smirk, wide and bright, her eyes sparking with the sort of fire you couldn’t be afraid of because it was so warm. Crowley was often cold, frozen to his very core even in the dead of summer, too chilled to feel much of anything at all (when he wasn’t a racing bushfire, destroying everything in his path). Eve was even better than him though and she had plenty of experience burning her bridges, so she kept her sparks to herself until she was sure someone could withstand them. But that also meant noticing when those who usually could, couldn’t. 

Like now. 

Like him. 

The smirk lost its jagged edge and he could almost see her gathering up the sparks and cupping them in her center, breathing across them, pushing them into a warm, crackling fire. The type meant for hearths, for wholesome things like baking and caring and warming ones toes by after too long spent outdoors in the dead of winter. 

“Alright there, boy?” She asked. 

Crowley looked away. “I’m fine,” he grumbled. “M’hip hurts.” 

He darted a look at Eve, but she’d crossed the room to poke at Junior. The snake hissed at her and she hissed right back as she scooped him up, turning to approach the counter so she could dump Junior into Crowley’s hands. “Watch the store,” she said, humor threaded through her voice. “Now that you’re conscious I’ve got some errands to run.” 

She reached back over and tapped Junior’s nose. “And you stay out of the orchids, you know better Mister.” 

“Hey, he would never.” Crowley defended, leaning back so she couldn’t reach Junior. 

“You’re really telling me a snake raised by _you_ wouldn’t break the rules?” Eve asked, one eyebrow arched. 

Crowley couldn’t exactly argue with that. 

“Maybe,” he muttered. 

Eve swept the papers from the desk, gathering up the lists of supplies she would need to pick up today as well as the most recent specialty requests their regulars had called in.

“Do try to stay awake this time,” she told him, the words harsh but her tone warm, “The rest of the weeding can wait until tomorrow, but the seed packets need inventorying.” 

He groaned because it really was a tedious task going through every single packet and counting how many of each variety they had. It was going to take hours. But, at least he can do it sitting down. Eve stood there for a moment, watching as he draped Junior around his shoulder once more and stood, hobbling over to the seed rack and dragging it back towards the counter. 

“Want a picture?” he snapped, feeling self-conscious and hating it. 

She snorted and shook her head, before turning on her heel and vanishing out the backdoor. 

Crowley lost the next few hours counting (and then recounting) the seed packets. A few customers trickled in and out, buying the usual small potted succulents and bundles of vegetables from the small edible plot he’d been keeping since last spring. It was a slow enough day that he found his mind drifting to his phone often, wanting to check if Azira had messaged him back yet. But he didn’t want to seem too eager so he refrained. 

When seven finally rolled around he flipped the sign to closed and shut down the register. Then he went to pick up the syllabus and list of books, only to discover that they were nowhere to be found. He sighed and pulled out the rubbish bin, annoyed at himself for not paying more attention. He shuffled through the papers and plant detritus, growing steadily more concerned as he didn’t find the sheets. 

Perhaps they had slid under the register? He carefully levered it up. Nothing. 

The floor? Totally clear. 

He patted down his own clothes, just in case he’d folded them up and forgotten. His pockets were empty of everything save a folded up gum wrapper he kept forgetting to throw away. He scowled and shoved it back in the pocket. 

How the fuck had he lost those papers already? It had been one fucking day!

Crowley scrubbed his hand through his hair, careful not to hit Junior who had been clinging rather tightly to him through all his frantic searching. The horrible thought occurred that he might have accidentally scooped them up with a customer’s plant care sheets and given them away. 

_God bloody fucking dammit._

There was nothing for it, he was going to have to just admit to taking it from Aziraphale. What a great way to start a relati– a frie– being his tutor. 

_Fuck_. 

He was such a goddamn fuck up. 

He scritched Junior’s head with one grimy fingernail. “Ready for bed, bud?” he asked, “It’s been a long damn day.” By now it was only half seven but he really hurt and he’d gotten less than two hours of sleep last night. Eve would definitely give him shit for skipping dinner in the morning, but at this point sleep was way more important than food. 

He stumbled back through the greenhouses, unable to not check on the plants one last time before collapsing into bed. Beez had broken one of the pots once to make a point and he hadn’t been able to get the image out of his head ever since. 

Finally assured that all was well, he opened the door to his little shed and froze. There on the bed was a bulging canvas bag and a large cardboard box, more long and thin than it was wide. 

“What the-” He pulled Junior from his neck and let him slither into the creeping vine that had recently begun slowly overtaking the wall by the door. There was another that kept trying to twine up the trunk of the apple tree that he cut back every few days but he didn’t mind this one so much, enjoying watching the tiny tendrils dig into the wood of the shed-wall. Junior also seemed to like being able to climb higher in the space as he was doing right now, rapidly slithering up the narrow vines toward one of the ceiling beams. It was always warmer at the top of the little space, especially at the end of the day. 

He pulled his attention back to the items on his bed, crossing the tiny space in two uneven steps. 

“Eve, you didn’t,” he whispered when he was close enough to see that the bag was filled to the brim with thick books, each with a lustrous illustration of stars and nebulae and planetary orbits. He pulled at the bag to reveal the label on the cardboard box. 

A bookshelf. 

It was cheap, all particle board and paper, but it was an honest to god bookshelf. Eve had bought him furniture and books and had snuck back here to leave them for him all without a word. 

“Do you see this, Junior?” he asked the little snake in the rafters. “Did I tell you about the guy I met? He’s hopeless, but I want to help him. And I thought,” he paused, sniffing back the stupid, traitorous tears that wanted to fall because Eve hadn’t needed to do this, hadn’t needed to let him sleep for so long this morning or sneak around in her own garden center. “I thought I wasn’t going to be able to.... He’s really great, Junior. He’s got this smile, like no one’s ever complimented him before, and you should have heard the noises he was making over his bloody cake.” 

Now that he’d started he couldn’t stop, telling Junior all about his night as he opened the cardboard box and assembled the little bookshelf beside his bed. When he was sure it was stable and secure, he pulled out the books and carefully arranged them. 

Then he carefully lowered himself onto the bed, leaning back against the wall of the shed and picking up the first of the books. 

“Do you want to learn about stars, Junior?” he asked, tentative in the quiet of the late evening, “It’ll be slow because I’ve got to read this, but you don’t mind that, right?” 

Junior never seemed to mind anything he did. It was his favorite thing about the little snake. 

“Unit 1,” he read, slowly sliding his finger under each contrary letter, forcing them into something that approximated human writing, “Stars and the History of Looking Up.” 

He passed the next hour working his way through the first few pages while taking care to memorize each and every diagram, drawing them with his fingers in the air and testing how he might explain them to Azira, feeling the way the words felt in his mouth. He’d always loved astronomy and when he was younger he devoured documentaries, forcing his private tutors to ignore the other units of science classes in favor of learning more about the stars. But, he’d never tried to share that knowledge before. 

Eventually, he drifted to sleep with the lamp still on and the book on his chest, so absorbed in preparing for his next session with Azira that he completely forgot to check his phone. 

* * *

Outside the shed, as she went about the evening chores Eve listened in to first Crowley telling Junior about the boy he was so clearly smitten with and then as he began to read for him. Her chest ached, filled with a tangled mix of worry and fondness. She hoped this Azira was worthy of Crowley’s dedication, hoped he recognized how much effort her boy was putting into this whole thing. She half wanted to warn Crowley off, to remind him of her own stumbles and mistakes in love but, well, it had been a long time since she’d seen anything but resigned exhaustion in his face and she couldn’t stand to be the one to take that away from him. 

So instead she lingered outside the shed for far longer than she needed to, listening as Crowley worked his way through the first of the books, his words slow and stumbling but eager. 

“I don’t pray much,” she whispered into the night when his voice finally petered out. “You know that you and me have more than a few problems. But, well,” she rubbed a hand down her face, dashing away the traitorous tears that gathered on her lashes, “You owe him this. He’s too good for everything you’ve thrown at him and I swear to you I will march right up there and burn that throne out from under your ass if you ruin this for him too.” 

She received no answer. She never did, though that didn’t mean anything. Eve had believed once when she was young and naive (sometimes she still wanted to, still wanted to feel like there was someone looking out for her besides herself), but these days it felt more like dialing a number of someone she knew was long dead and gone. Every time she’d get the ansaphone and she’d leave a message because that was what she did. Still, she was an optimist, or she tried to be. 

“I’m serious,” she whispered, “ _Great burning throne_ , just keep that in mind.” 

Then, because she figured she should, she said, “Amen,” and turned back to the main building. 


	5. Of Dormant Blooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience! We are shifting schedule over to every other Thursday. 
> 
> Previously there was a chapter here with that explanation for those of you who were looking for this on Wednesday but that has been deleted to make sure that this one wouldn't be missed on accident!

[Anthony Friday 4:13 am] _Sorry I had to leave. It's early so I didn't want to wake you. Lmk when you want to meet up again, last night was fun._

Crowley stared at the message. It was Saturday. Over 24 hours had passed, 27 and 39 minutes, not that he was counting, and Aziraphale still hadn’t responded. Was that a sign? Probably. Aziraphale was much too good for someone like Crowley. Soft and sweet with just enough mischievousness in his smile to be worth knowing. And oh, the awe in his eyes when they lit up in understanding after Crowley had explained something just the right way.

He’d wanted... well, he’d wanted a lot of things that he really probably shouldn’t have been wanting after only knowing the guy a few hours. But, even outside of those things, he’d genuinely wanted to help Aziraphale. 

When he was younger, around eleven or so, Crowley had spent hours alone in the school library, dragging his useless eyes back and forth over the same lines and words and forcing them to make sense. None of his teachers had known what to do with him, the devastatingly clever kid who failed any test they put in front of him, so he was often shuffled off to ‘study hall’ while the other students did group work. At first he’d been bitter, furious that he could understand so easily, could answer the teachers’ questions aloud but still be unable to keep up and complete any assignments. At first it was just another place he didn’t quite fit, not at home, not at school. They all just wanted him to be quiet, to stop asking _why for bloody once and just be quiet_ . Then, just as the air began to crisp up and his classmates started reading Hamlet, he’d picked up _The Big Book of Astronomy_ and fell in love for the first time in his life. 

It was a revelation. 

Books had always been the enemy, reading a hated chore he had to force himself to complete (when he cared to do so at all, mostly he tried to avoid it). 

But, suddenly there were glossy pictures laid out before him- brilliant reds and golds and rich blues the color of the sea in movies. Even now, years later, he still remembered the way the smooth page had felt beneath the pads of his fingers, unable to stop himself from touching the images, from confirming that they were really there. Crowley had always wanted to know more, was always filled to the brim with questions it seemed not one else had time for. But now he just had one question he needed answered.

He’d taken the book up to the librarian, cradling it in his hands, and laid it before her. 

“What is this?” he’d asked, pointing to the cloud of colors and light on the first page. 

Mrs. Hendricks, the school’s elderly librarian and his secret supplier of cinnamon spiced cocoa, had peered through her coke-bottle glasses at the page and said, “Oh, that appears to be a nebula.” 

“What’s a nebula?” Crowley had asked, eleven years old and absolutely burning up with the knowledge that this was a thing out in the universe and he could see pictures of it. 

And, Mrs. Hendricks had smiled at him and said, “I don’t know, dear.” (He’d always liked that about her, that she was willing to admit when she didn’t know something.) “Why don’t we find out?”

And so they had. 

Mrs. Hendricks was patient and she was kind and she didn’t mind how long it took him to carefully sound out each word. When there were new words, ones he didn't know, she typed them into the dictionary program for him and let the computer read off the definition and he would close his eyes and remember. 

They’d worked their way through the entire _Big Book_ by the time his class was done with Hamlet and when he showed up in the library for his next study hall he’d found her waiting for him with a small treasure trove of new books, ones that didn’t just show pictures, but also explained the science and suddenly Crowley’s questions spawned new questions and he dove in, not even minding the effort or the frustration. 

He’d had three wonderful months in that library. 

Then, Mrs. Hendricks had suffered a sudden stroke and she was _gone_ and the new librarian didn’t seem to have time for him anymore. 

Slowly, in the oppressive silence of the library and his home, the questions dried up. More and more the words slipped through is grasp like smoke, drifting further away and fading with each day until by the time he turned twelve, by the time he turned twelve, he’d set aside any nebulous thoughts of making a career of the stars. 

Now, as he sat at the register and tried not to check his phone again, Crowley wondered if Aziraphale would like to see anything from the _Big Book,_ it wasn’t exactly scientific, but it was pretty and maybe the other man would enjoy–

He jerked himself away from those thoughts. It didn’t matter anyway, Aziraphale clearly hadn’t felt the same way about their time together as Crowley did. Really, who was he kidding? He might like astronomy and the sky, but he wasn’t formally trained, wasn’t educated at all. Enthusiasm did not a passing grade make. His shoulders slumped and he braced himself against the counter with a sigh. 

He wanted to stop thinking about all this (wanted to think about nothing else), because what was the point of trying to figure out what it meant, anyway? Aziraphale hadn’t said anything back— what if he’d just been ghosted? What if he was just too nice to tell Crowley to sod off? That he wasn’t good enough or smart enough or— Well, that he wasn’t _enough._ Each thought felt like another resounding crack of a night stick on his shoulders, sending him slumping further and further, until his forehead was on the cool counter and his arms flopped over it, his hands hanging off the other side.

Behind him, unseen, Eve stood in the doorway sipping at her tea. She watched as Crowley lay still for one long moment before drawing himself together with a sharp inhale and pulling one of the new textbooks from his bag. He opened it up to the forward and slowly, painstakingly, began to read through it. Though she couldn’t see his face, Eve could picture it; the way he mouthed the words to himself as he ran his fingers across the page, frowning and moving backwards as he read a word that didn’t make sense, forcing himself to read it again and again until it did. Finishing the last of her tea, Eve nodded to herself and returned to her flat above the shop, wrote out a note on a scrap of printer paper. She made her way back down the stairs and out to tape it to the front door, all without Crowley ever looking up.

“Stupid kid.” She muttered to herself with a sigh that wrenched the heart from her chest. Whoever his parents had been, she’d like to have _words_ with them. The kid—even if he was an adult, he’d always be the young and stupid _whippersnapper_ without a place to stay to her—had plenty of hangups about being stupid and clingy that shone through, bright as daylight when you got to know him. Hopefully, even if whatever boy he was mooning over didn’t like him back, he’d think a bit more of himself after all the studying and hard work he was putting into it…

She turned on her heel and exited the shop, going out to the greenhouse and then back further into the dryhouse. Visible on the door behind her, as it swung to a creaking close, was a handwritten sign that read “Use Other Door, Out of Service” with an arrow pointing the way. The day passed slowly and quietly, with no one bothering Crowley at the register, save for Eve the few times she needed to make change or pick up one of the complementary ‘mystery’ seed packets they kept on hand for the neighborhood kids. Crowley continued to drag his recalcitrant eyes across the words and by the late afternoon he’d made his way through nearly half of the textbook. 

Eventually, the sun had set and Crowley was reading by the lamp he’d turned on himself, while while lost in the math and stars, frustrated with how slowly he read and how many times he had to go back entire pages because it turned out he'd read things wrong the first time and he needed them to make sense to understand _this_ part now, and was that the same word as before or were they just similar? There were so many similar words. Finally, with a dejected _fuck,_ Crowley pushed the book away and leaned back on the barstool of a chair, pushing up on his sunglasses to rub at his tired eyes. 

He clicked the home button on his phone and hissed at the time, 9 pm already. He was just about to slide the phone back into his pocket when he saw the little light in the top blink. He paused and clicked the button to wake the screen again. There, just underneath the clock was was a message notification. From Tinder. His heart sped up, a bullet train leaving the station, already racing ahead, as he hastily unlocked the screen, pulling up the app.

[Azira Saturday 5:29 pm] _I am sorry! I hadn’t seen this message until now. I feared I ran you off! Yes, I would like that very much. Please let me know what you need from me and I’ll be happy to meet up with you again soon!_

[Anthony Saturday 9:03 pm] _It’s alright, I was at work and just saw yours. I think I have everything we need, just give me some time to review._

[Azira Saturday 9:05 pm] _Tickety-boo! Would Tuesday be alright? My next class is Wednesday and I’d like to see you before then._

Crowley blinked at his phone and the message for a moment before nodding, completely forgetting he couldn’t be seen. Thankfully, he managed to sound at least decently put-together over text, even if it did take longer to respond for him, because he was he wouldn’t have been able to manage more than a few garble syllables aloud just then. 

[Anthony Saturday 9:06 pm] _Tickety_ **_boo_ ** _?? What’s that mean?_

[Anthony Saturday 9:06 pm] _But sure, I’d love to. When and where?_

He clicked ‘send’ and then immediately regretted it. Ugh, he could _smack_ himself, ‘what’s that mean?’ way to sound like a berk. 

The minutes dragged on without a response and he stood, filled with nervous energy. He gathered up his scribbled notes and the textbook, shoving the papers in to mark his page. Clicking off the lamp, he surveyed the retail space quickly, looking for anything that was out of place or would need straightening before opening in the morning. Then, finding nothing askew, he crossed to the door and turned the locks. 

He had just thrown himself down on his thin mattress after a quick, anxiety filled, shower when he heard the cheerful little ding of a message arriving. 

[Azira Saturday 9:56 pm] _Well, if you must know, the dictionary says “_ _in good order; fine.” Would you like to get coffee again?_

Crowley’s heart skipped a beat. Yeah, yeah he would. He’d like to get a lot more than coffee, if he was being truthful, but he was nothing if not used to taking what little he could get. 

[Anthony Saturday 10:00 pm] _Only if there’s also cake involved._

[Azira Saturday 10:00 pm] _Of course. Only if you let me buy this time._

Be still his poor heart. Crowley threw his arm across his face and moaned into the crook of his elbow, it was just his luck to go on a date and end up a blessed fucking tutor and _also_ head over heels. After a few seconds he drew in a deep breath and picked out a response.

[Anthony Saturday 10:05 pm] _Only if you text me on my actual number instead of this app. 070 7946 0709_

[Unknown Number 10:06 pm] _This is Anthony, right? 6 o’ clock for more time together on Tuesday?_

Tuesday came and Crowley shuffled his papers nervously, the coffee date—no don’t be stupid, it’s not a date, Crowley!—and saluted Eve on his way out of the shop, nervously bussing a kiss to the top of Junior’s head as he ran to jump to the Bentley and off to adventure!

Or, well, coffee and tutoring, but it _felt_ like an adventure. 

* * *

Aziraphale rarely thought about his clothes as much as he had today. Of course, it was a useless preoccupation given that the thought hadn’t occurred until he was halfway through his first lecture of the day. Then, it burrowed into him like a particularly determined mole. Really he just wanted to look respectable, clever but not annoying. He didn’t want Anthony thinking that he wasn’t worth the effort to teach. 

The day passed quickly, in a haze of students and office hours and skimming readings for the never ending Background chapter of his dissertation. Soon, almost before he realized it was half five and he was slipping his work into his satchel to make his way over to the cafe they’d agreed to meet at. 

As he trotted across the university grounds—bitterly regretting that he’d gotten caught up in one of his readings and was thus obliged to jog since he was running late _again_ —he rehearsed the apologies he thought up for waiting so long to reply to Anthony’s message. 

_Oh dear, I’m so sorry for_ \- No, too friendly. 

_My deepest apologi-_ Ugh, too formal. 

Eventually, when the cafe came into view, he settled on simply insisting on purchasing their drinks. He paused outside the door just long enough to catch his breath before entering. 

* * *

Meeting up with Azira was like a gift every time it happened, a surprise and a long-awaited blessing rolled into one package. He was easy to talk to and caught on to the ideas Crowley explained quickly, rapidly figuring out how each new concept was meant to fit into the whole picture. Every once in a while Crowley found himself drifting off, losing his ability to focus as Azira’s eyes sparkled and his hands fluttered and his words tumbled. He was beautiful. 

They spent their first sessions working their way through the last few weeks of the syllabus, Crowley slowly defining terms and making sure that Azira understood them before moving on to the next one. After catching up in the syllabus they moved on to Azira’s most recent homework assignment and Crowley showed him why each point had been deducted. 

The time passed quickly, as quickly as the first night had, and soon Crowley found he was leaving their second and then third and then fourth session. And each time Crowley left the other man behind he couldn’t help but pray, just a little, to a God he didn’t really believe in on the way to his car. 

_Please, God, or whoever hears me, if anyone does. Universe maybe? Please. Just, don’t let him get tired of me._

_I don’t think I could bear it._

* * *

After their fourth session Crowley realized that one of Azira’s biggest problems was that the diagrams in his textbook were overcomplicated, trying to cram too many elements into too small a space and often incorporating concepts that hadn’t been introduced yet. They were worse than unhelpful, honestly. So, over the course of the few days between their fourth and fifth sessions, Crowley spent his time at the register either reading or doing his damndest to draw. He spent hours at a time holding his pencil _so carefully_ , hoping his fingers would let him write and draw for more than a few minutes before cramping painfully and forcing him to try his luck at reading again while he rubbed his palm free of muscle spasms until it relaxed enough that he could pick up his pencil and try again. Erasing was the worst, making mistakes bad enough to warrant it nearly made him cry by the time he’d worked well into the night, but he kept himself together. For the most part.

His attempts at drawing charts from the book in a less crowded way was difficult, especially when he needed to add in more information or cross reference a few of the books and write in a few things where there hadn’t been space to begin with. Crowley ripped up four of the charts he drew and only regretted three of them after. 

Each of their tutoring sessions went much like the first. Crowley pining and wishing it were a proper date and Aziraphale too sweet to be real, offering tea and biscuits despite meeting for coffee first and then ordering food in or making dinner himself. It felt deceptively like they’d somehow skipped all the awkward parts of dating and settled into the domesticity of a well-settled relationship. Except, yanno, for the utter lack of romantic attraction on the part of the non-Crowley party. That certainly put a damper on things and he had to remind himself _don’t touch, don't stare, don’t reach out and hold._ Though sometimes it was nearly too much and he contrived reasons to correct Aziraphale’s hands while teaching him to calculate parallax or lean over his shoulder to reach out and read the things he’d written. Any feelings of Aziraphale leaning back against his chest were surely just his hopeful thinking and nothing more, just his dreams bleeding into the light of day. 

* * *

The papers on Aziraphale’s desk were, as a rule, old. He didn’t think that he’d had anything newer than the last few centuries in at least the last two terms. But, now, beneath his fingers was a smooth sheet of printer paper. 80 lb, he thought, as he moved it between his fingertips. It felt weird, though not unpleasant. He lay it flat and smoothed one hand across the surface, delighting in the feeling. Halfway across there was a little bump, a depression where a pencil had been pressed into the paper. He paused and traced the image. 

It was a simple diagram of a half sphere with flat lines extending from the center of the sphere out to the dome, there were lopsided stars drawn where the lines intersected the dome. He touched the largest of the stars, a little smile curling the corner of his mouth. There were diagrams in his book, lots of them in fact, but there was something about the little pile of hand-drawn ones Anthony had sheepishly pulled from his bag at their last meeting that spoke to him. 

They weren’t _well_ done, by any stretch of the imagination. But, they were concrete proof that Anthony had not only wanted to help him learn the material, but also had spent time when they were apart preparing for their meeting. The thought that Anthony had thought about him, that of all the things and people in the world, he’d thought about _Aziraphale_. 

The idea settled into the base of his chest, warming him from the inside, curling up his throat. His hand rose from the paper to clutch at his collar, wanting to hold something but unsure what, unsure what he wanted at all really. 

Aziraphale had discovered a rather recent inability to concentrate on the things he was sorely meant to be. Crowley’s long and dexterous fingers and the deceptively lean muscles along his arms and shoulders shifted underneath golden skin tanned from manual labor in the sun as he moved. He always smelt of something that brought to mind running through the countryside in the summer and autumn spices, and Aziraphale couldn’t seem to keep his thoughts fully appropriate for a tutor and student relationship. 

And the things Crowley knew?! Aziraphale was surely lost, Crowley had a story for every occasion, endless silly trivia facts about snakes, and a truly amazingly vast knowledge of any variety of flora he could contrive of. And, to Aziraphale, his knowledge of the stars and astronomy in general was unparallelled. Not only that, but he never seemed to grow frustrated when Aziraphale needed a concept explained a few different ways before he cottoned on and understood it fully, only smiled that lopsided smile of his and thought of a new way to accommodate Aziraphale. Only two or three weekly sessions in and Aziraphale had learned and retained more than he had all semester, and not only that but his homework had come back with nearly full marks!

There was a knock at the door, startling him from his thoughts. He looked up to Doctor Haistwell smiling at him gently. 

Aziraphale tried to summon a smile of his own. It was hard. His time the last few days had been spent frantically filling out forms for external funding and working his way through the assigned readings for Astronomy and grading his students’ homework assignments and taking no time at all for himself. He felt frayed. 

Haistwell took a step into the office and lay one hand on his shoulder, “Come on,” ens said, “There’s a fresh basket of muffins in the lounge and I want to get there before that damned Moonshine from sociology takes all the chocolate chip again.” 

Aziraphale’s wan smile suddenly felt a bit more real, though he wasn’t sure if it was a result of Haistwell’s well-known feud with Nancy Moonshine or the idea of fresh baked goods. In the end, he thought as he stood up, he supposed it didn’t really matter. 

“Well,” he said, “we can’t have her thinking she deserves all the chocolate chip. She’ll be insufferable.” 

* * *

Somehow, over the course of the last three weeks it had become common for Crowley to stay up late, studying with a single-minded determination to impress the boy he liked in a subject he adored already. It certainly wasn’t a hardship, or at least, it wasn’t until the mornings. He counted his time in bed after waking, leaving it at fifteen in a count of thirty, more and more often, unable to force himself to move any other way. While he’d never been a morning person he’d rarely felt so drunk with the lack of sleep before. 

Today the very idea of slipping from beneath his covers into the chill morning air felt even more intolerable than normal. He reached _ten_ in his count and felt his muscles tense, already preparing to fight his attempt to rise. It was even earlier than normal, but he had to go greet Mr. Van Sandel (aka _Orchid Guy,_ to be said in an exclusively dismissive tone per the old lady’s orders). The guy did _not_ fuck around about orchids, but he also couldn’t seem to keep them alive for longer than a month or so. 

When he hit fifteen, he forced his weary body to move, exploding into motion and hurrying up and out of the bed before the mental count reached thirty. Then, as the chill of his little room reached him he hurried through dressing in one of his nicer shirts. He didn’t like Orchid Guy, but he disliked listening to his snide comments about ‘retail workers in their ratty clothes’ even more. Some days he might wear his fertilizing outfit, an old pair of pants that hung far too low on his hips and constantly smelled particularly fragrant and a moth-eaten vest top, just to aggravate the other man. But today he just didn’t have the energy. 

Orchid Guy was waiting for him when he arrived to unlock the front door, his saccharine sweet smile a pall upon Crowley’s entire day. 

“Mr. Van Sandel,” Crowley greeted with a downward turn to his lips, cradling his forehead and feeling very much like he had a hangover, though he hadn’t drunk a drop in weeks. “We open at six am, you know that. Knocking on the front door won’t make us open quicker.” It didn’t much matter to be perfectly honest, Van Sandel wasn’t really the type to listen and Crowley _had_ opened as much as ten minutes early in the past just to get some godforsaken peace and quiet as the man checked in on the newest of the orchids.

As always, it took nearly an hour and a half to get Mr. Van Sandel out the door with his two bloody new orchids and _strict_ instructions on how to care for them. Not that it mattered—he’d be back in about a month or so to do it all over again, Crowley knew, no matter how carefully he explained orchid care. The man always grilled him on every small aspect of the orchids he planned to purchase—where they came from, what strain they were. Worse, Crowley often felt like they were questions he already knew the answers to considering how sometimes, if Crowley misspoke or had misread some information from the import sheet, the man would correct him in a smarmy, self-important tone he took with _menial workers_ like Crowley. It was, in a word, exhausting.

The really frustrating thing was that, despite the smug correction of any little mistake Crowley made, he was half convinced Mr. Van Sandel didn’t know orchids went into a hibernation of sorts where they needed more fertilizer and a cooler environment to produce blooms again… It would certainly explain how he seemed to always be needing more of them. A small thread of rage wound up his ribcage at the thought of perfectly good orchids being thrown out or disposed of for just doing what they would naturally, for underperforming due to the circumstances they were put in.

It was one thing when plants underperformed or gained spots or drooped in optimal conditions like they had here. When that happened and they didn’t perk back up with some fertilizer and corrected sun and water intake Crowley felt fully justified in berating them and threatening them with customers and his shed out back (or the garden out front if they were his own private collection in his shed). But, if they were being ignored and doing their best only to be thrown out anyway? That hit Crowley like an arrow to the heart and in a way he specifically wouldn’t think about.

Fuck. 

He _hated_ Van Sandel.

* * *

The session began as they normally did; Aziraphale presented his notes and Anthony ignored them in favor of asking him to summarize what he remembered from the lecture. This time he knew Professor Avgerinós had spent the majority of the time talking about the outer planets, but for the life of him he couldn’t understand what made any of them so special. 

“It’s just silly,” he ranted, “Why is Mars any different than Saturn or Uranus or any of them?” 

Anthony chuckled. “Well, Mars is terrestrial, like Earth, Mercury, and Venus. Saturn and Uranus are Jovian, named because they’re like Jupiter.”

If he hadn’t been raised to be something approximating a gentleman, Aziraphale might pull his hair out. 

“Sure, fine, good,” he said instead, “But why does that _matter_? How does it change anything at all whether the blessed bloody thing is like Jupiter or not?”

He tried not to look at Crowley, worried that this frustration was too much, too obviously dim for the other man to want to continue helping him. But, after a few seconds of silence, he felt the light brush of fingers against the back of his hand. By the time he looked up Anthony had retreated back to his half of the couch. 

“It matters,” he said, “I promise. Okay, so remember how we talked about the planets getting formed? It was a few weeks ago.” 

Aziraphale nodded and then, quite without thought, said, “Of course, I remember everything you tell me.” 

“Right! Right, okay. Erm, so, anyway, I didn’t give you quite the whole story. See, it’s only _most_ of the planets that came from the sun’s planetary disc.” 

Aziraphale groaned, “Of course it can’t be easy, why is nothing about space easy?” 

Crowley laughed, “Because it wouldn’t be interesting then. So, see, the solar system had been formed, all nice and pretty and everything where it should be, doing what it was meant to do.” 

He went on and Aziraphale found himself enraptured, entirely taken with the passion with which Crowley described the events of so very long ago Aziraphale could barely comprehend it. As he spoke he slumped lower and lower on the sofa, his spine curving into the cushions. Eventually, his words slowed and when Aziraphale looked up from completing a practice problem, he was startled to realize Crowley had fallen asleep. 

He looked, well, he looked tired even in sleep. But, he also looked _soft_ in a way Aziraphale had never before seen him, all his hard edges sanded away by the quiet whistle of air through his nose and the slide of corduroy against skin when he turned his head. 

Aziraphale realized he rather wanted to curl up beside him. As soon as the thought occurred he sat straight up and picked up his papers, moving to the kitchen. 

Crowley was his tutor and _maybe_ his friend.

And he was clearly exhausted, the least Aziraphale could do was let him sleep.

Later, Aziraphale slipped from the den to stand in the kitchen, unsure how he should go about waking Anthony. He leaned back around the door, peering at Anthony’s slumped form. That warmth that had settled into his chest all those days ago flared, sending a bright flush across his cheeks. He would let him sleep for a bit longer, he’d been so tired today, for the last few times they’d met really, and Aziraphale wanted nothing more than for his... _friend_ to be well rested and happy. The thought was very strange, realizing that he had a friend. 

He smiled, unable to help himself, and reached for the large stock pot on the top shelf. He’d make them dinner and then wake Anthony. 

He was so distracted by thoughts of the delightful little caprese salad he could make once the water was boiling that he didn’t see the baking sheet overbalance and fall from the cabinet until it was too late to do anything but watch as it hit first the counter and then the ground with a silence shattering crash. 

“Mhgph,” he heard from the other room. 

“No need to get up!” He called as he set the stock pot down and picked up the pan. “You can keep–” He looked up and there Anthony was, standing in the doorway looking sleep rumpled and warm in a way that seemed to match the little flame in his chest. He swallowed and looked away. 

“Sorry,” Anthony muttered, “Didn’t mean to fall asleep on you, had an early-” he paused as a yawn ripped its way through him, “Ugh, an early morning.” 

Aziraphale waved one hand. “It’s really no worry, dear,” he said and laughed, “I completely understand. I’m not really one for sleep myself, there’s too much out there to read, too much work to be done, but I _am_ still a graduate student and we _do_ know a few things about sleep deprivation.” 

Anthony chuffed a quiet laugh, scrubbing one hand down the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess you would,” he said and yawned again. “Still, don’t want you to think I’m, I don’t know, bored or whatever.” 

Aziraphale felt his smile turn fond. “I could never think that,” he said as he pointed to the small stack of drawings in the center of the table. 

Curiously, Anthony blushed at that. 

“Right,” he said and then, again, “Right.” 

“So, when you’re not dragging me kicking and screaming towards an understanding of the cosmos, what do you do?” Aziraphale asked as he measured out a few portions of farfalle. 

“Oh, uh, I mean I,” Anthony stuttered, “I work at a garden center.” 

Huh, that really hadn’t been what Aziraphale expected him to say. If he was being honest with himself he probably would have said Anthony was a bartender, listening to his customers complaints and giving kind, if a tad acerbic, advice or that he worked for some big corporation, cleverly figuring out ways to solve problems of far-reaching import. 

But, a garden center. Thinking about it brought to mind the odd smell he’d noticed on their first meeting. Growing things, he realized now, Anthony had smelled of new life. 

“That’s... very nice,” he said and meant it.

Anthony smiled at him. 

“So, what sort of....plants? Do you have?” Aziraphale laughed a little at himself, “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m just as hopeless with green things as I am with the stars.” 

Anthony’s smile grew. He waved one hand dismissively. “You’re not hopeless at all,” he said. Then, he looked away and swallowed, “I mean, er, I have a lot of plants. Just, yeah, a uh, lot of them.” 

Aziraphale laughed. “So specific! Do go on,” he said, “I want to know all about these generic plants of yours.” 

And so Anthony did, he began slow, but by the time the water was boiling and the simple puttanesca simmering he had warmed to the subject and was eagerly telling Aziraphale all about the garden center. He lit up when he spoke about it, Aziraphale realized, his exhaustion falling away in the same way it did when he spoke of the cosmos. The long fingers he found himself unable to look away from flicking rapidly through the air as he told a story about helping the garden center’s owner build a new orchid house a few summers back after some local hooligans had damaged the old one. He swallowed, the realization he’d been trying to avoid creeping just that much closer. 

When the meal was ready they picked up their bowls and, after looking at the paper covered table, decided sloth was the better part of valor and retired to the den to eat. 

* * *

The meal was delicious, better than delicious, heavenly. Crowley wasn’t one for food; he ate, but he didn’t tend to think about it until his stomach ached and often resorted to energy bars in lieu of actual meals. But this, well, this made him want to reconsider his stance. 

He’d eat three meals a day and maybe desert sometimes if it all tasted like this (if he always got to see Aziraphale’s face when he took that first bite, to delight in the way he closed his eyes when he chewed). He’d finished long before the other man and set his bowl aside to lean back against the sofa, giving in the low ache in his hip and the bone deep exhaustion that pulled on him. 

“Anthony, I have a question.” Aziraphale asked, cutting into the comfortable silence that had fallen. Crowley looked over to see him tilting his head to the side in a way that was wholly, unfairly like a confused puppy. Crowley was thunderstruck, the look rocking him to his very core—how the bloody hell had anyone ever said ‘no’ to this man? Just what sort of heartless monster had the gall?

“Ye–yeah?” Crowley asked, leaning further into the the couch with his arm over the back and lolling his head to the side to look at Aziraphale, hoping desperately he looked suave in the face of such guileless inquiry. “‘Sup?” He tacked on, wincing at how lamely it fell between them.

Aziraphale paused, seemingly considering his next words carefully, and Crowley did his best to not stiffen with nerves as he felt Aziraphale’s eyes rake over his form. He felt suddenly laid out and exposed in a way that was vulnerable rather than effortlessly cool. So he leaned forward, curling his back to rest his elbows on his knees, forcing himself to look up at Aziraphale rather than over from the side, his stomach and the length of his torso no longer exposed. Habit, really. 

“When is your birthday?” Aziraphale finally asked in a rush, a light dusting of pink high on his cheeks.

“What?” Crowley squawked back, blinking a few times in surprise. 

“Your– your birthday, Anthony. When is it?”

“February tenth.” 

“Oh, nearly here then!” Aziraphale clapped and smiled so genuinely his eyes closed. 

And Crowley, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out why he’d said the wrong day.

* * *

“What are you doing on this side of campus?” The voice is cultured, smooth as old whiskey and nearly as monied. The sort of voice you were meant to trust, or at least the sort of voice that wanted you to think you were meant to trust it. 

Haistwell knew better. 

“Lucien,” ens said, inclining ens head in the barest possible nod towards polite behavior. “I’m here for the coffee, obviously.” Ens held up the ceramic mug ens had pilfered from the cabinet just before Avgerinós entered the small lounge on the top floor of the astronomy and physics building. 

Avgerinós stared at ens, his gaze flat. “A long way for subpar coffee,” he said. 

Haistwell chuckled, “Well, you should see what they try to serve us in the Humanities.” Ens affected an artful shudder. “Truly inhumane,” ens paused and took a long sip from the mug, “Not that you’d know anything about that.” 

A tense silence. 

Then, Haistwell smiled. “Bad coffee and scarce funding, I mean,” ens said.

“Right,” Avgerinós bit out. 

The silence rose again. Haistwell blithely sipped at ens coffee, eyes never leaving Avgerinós.

Another professor entered the little room and paused, looking between the two of them with raised brows. Haistwell made sure to send them a kind smile, ens wasn’t here to put the fear of, well, enself into the _entire_ department after all. 

Just one very specific asshole. 

The other professor nodded to them and quickly opened the refrigerator, grabbed out a sack lunch, and beat a quick retreat. As soon as the door swung shut, Avgerinós sighed. 

“Not that I don’t _always_ enjoy your company, Darby,” he said. Haistwell’s fingers clenched around ens mug. 

“But why am I here, yes I know,” Haistwell said, “No reason really, I just wanted to check in and see how everything was going for you. We do have a shared interest, after all, and I’d hate for anything to impede my student’s progress.” 

Avgerinós was silent. 

Haistwell drained the last of ens mug. “That really is good coffee,” ens said, placing the mug on the counter with a quiet clink. “Though, really, this is Britain. Do restock the tea, won’t you?” 

He left without another word.


	6. Of Broken Vessels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome guys to ch 6 where we fuck up the Bentley  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In text we have written out the emoji :like this: so that any text/screen reading software can read the fic as accurately as possible without losing some of the intention in translation.
> 
> That being said, the emoji used in the fic are below:
> 
> In Aziraphale's contacts, Crowley is [Crowley 🌌]  
> In Crowley's contacts, Aziraphale is [🐏📚]

“What are we going to do about this new crush?” Eve asked Junior as she watched Crowley brush the dirt from his shoes in preparation for another tutoring session. 

Junior, who’d been moving a little slowly the last few weeks as the cold descended on London, did not respond. She thought he would probably like, inasmuch as a snake could _like_ anything, anyone Crowley liked. For her part, Eve was, in turns, charmed and delighted that Crowley kept a rotation of the reference books and text she’d gotten him. She was also quite worried. It was obvious to her, if not to Crowley himself, just how deep he’d fallen for the boy he was going through all this effort for and in the depths of her heart she hoped that it wouldn’t end poorly. 

She’d had a love like that once, an all-consuming flame that might have light every corner of her life. All she wanted out of this life was for the boy to be as happy as she and Adam had been and to not experience the terrible, sulfur plunge of grief she had. She didn’t have children—not, not anymore—but she couldn’t help but feel a surge of those old motherly feelings when she looked at Crowley. There was some of her boys about him, in the endless optimism and the wiry courage he could always manage to screw up when he needed to. Kay had been that way when he was little, all smiles and a stiff spine. 

She thought that they probably would have liked Crowley, would have welcomed him into their little world and loved him the same way she did. 

“Any plans to come back tonight?” She called across the little retail space. “Or should I go ahead and lock up?” 

Crowley looked up, face scarlet. He sputtered a bit before jabbing a finger in her direction. “You are a cruel and awful woman,” he said, “And I don’t like you very much at all.” The lie was obvious both from the smile on his face and the kiss he pressed to her forehead before retreating, the blush crawling further up his neck. 

She liked the effect this boy was having on him; he’d never been so openly affectionate in the past. 

“Be safe!” She called after him, “Use protection, boy! I’m not paying your bills if you get the clap!”

“ _Eve!_ ” The anguished wail reached her from just outside the door and she laughed. 

“Don’t stay up too late waiting for him,” she told the little snake when she managed to get herself back under control. She turned on his night lamp and climbed the stairs to her own apartment. 

* * *

Crowley couldn’t get it out of his head. February tenth. What in _bloody hell_ did he think he was saying? Not only was it _not_ his birthday like Aziraphale had asked, but it was– Crowley swerved around a car on the highway and grit his teeth, a day rather dedicated to not thinking about it at all. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel of his beloved Bentley until the leather creaked and his knuckles went white. 

The cassette in the deck clicked and ejected partially. The combination radio and cassette player was, along with the speakers he’d shoved underneath the dashboard, the only concessions to modernity he allowed in the car. The interior was reupholstered, but with real leather, and the engine was faithfully rebuilt with newer parts but in the style of the originals. They’d last longer and be easier to clean, would work just a little better so he’d been alright with the slight differences from the factory. 

Even with the new parts, ultimately the Speed Six model wouldn’t get up above 85 mph on a good day (but this was London, traffic meant he rarely got a chance to get above 30 mph anyway). Really, the speed wasn’t what mattered, she wasn’t a getaway car (even if he fancied that he could probably make a decent driver) and he had made that clear early on. Crowley was in it for the show, a restored and carefully taken care of Bentley, smoothly rolling down the street to the awe and envy of those who saw it. 

All that being said, Monday the third (one week before the hated tenth) found him pushing that top speed down the motorway. He pressed his foot harder to the floorboard, wanting that little bit more, those few extra particles of petrol to hit the sparkplugs propelling him and the Bentley forward. Then, he cursed violently as he realized he’d nearly missed his exit, slamming on the breaks and raising one hand to flip off the minivan behind him as the overwrought football mum laid on her horn. He maneuvered off the motorway and merged onto the surface streets, muttering imprecations and feeling irritable and upset and all sorts of other foul things that rhymed with in-a-smood. 

And then he got hit. 

The Bentley jolted sharply and his vision did something funny because one moment he was scowling at the road and the next it slid away as he was pushed across the intersection. His neck, moving just a bit too slowly to keep up with his torso when it jerked to the left, cracked loudly as pressure was relieved far too quickly for mere ligaments and bones. Another chaotic half-second passed and his forehead hit something hard. Suddenly the world was half-bright but he could not quite figure out why that might be past the distraction of something wet on his temple. 

Dimly, he realized he’d just been t-boned. There was a shout from somewhere and, realizing why it was so strange and bright, Crowley slowly fumbled his right hand up towards his face to fix his sunglasses. His fingers found an empty frame and _oh,_ one of the lenses was missing.... Weird. Where’d he put it…?

Crowley looked down at the bench-style seat to his left, searching for the lens that had popped out of the frames. He did hope it wasn't broken. There was an awful lot of broken glass around. His searching fingers found a few sharp corners and he curled them in, trying to avoid adding to the collection of tiny cuts he could suddenly feel peppering his face, neck, and arms. 

There was a terrible grinding-shriek, a slight rocking sensation that made his entire body feel shivery and strange and when he looked to the left he could only blink slowly in response as he realized Hastur was being shoved into his car by a scowling Beelzebub. 

Great, the thought percolated up through the haze that had fallen over him, he really hadn’t wanted to deal with this shit today. 

“He,” Beez jabbed one crooked finger at Hastur and spoke slowly, as if Crowley was an especially dim dog, “Was in your car the whole time. You got hit, that’s why he’s got these injuries. Got it?” 

Crowley blinked again, taking a few moments longer than normal to reach _“got it”_ before he could sketch a nod. His head felt as if it were located about fifteen paces to the right of his body. Placing his hands back on the steering wheel, he groaned as the little cuts and scrapes made their presence known. Then, he watched with a wince as the nondescript SUV that had crashed into him reversed and quickly drove off. 

That, he thought blearily, was a getaway driver if he'd ever seen one.

“Has– Hastur?” Crowley muttered, releasing the wheel just long enough to reach over and poke the other man on the shoulder. Hastur groaned. Oh good, his brain called from its position ambling down the pavement, he's alive. At least he hadn't gotten anyone killed in this obviously-totally-an-accident incident. 

Hastur's groans subsided to a quiet, constant moan. Crowley ignored him (he'd long ago learned that was really the only way to deal with Hastur and retain either one's sanity or self-respect) and sighed. Then, because it hurt rather badly to breathe in so deeply, he did it again. The pain was bracing, clear in a way nothing else seemed to be just then and he used it to drag his head just a little closer to the rest of himself. 

He squinted past the way the world was tilting slighting to the right and looked through the remnants of the shattered windshield to the front of the Bentley. Poor girl. If Hastur weren't here he'd pat her and tell her she was still the prettiest thing out there, no matter what Beez had done to her. She was the only one for him. 

For a moment, a flash of a second, he slipped from one reality to another and when he glanced over at Hastur it was Azira curled up in the seat beside him. Moaning, crying, asking him why _why_ **_why_ **. Why hadn't Crowley warned him off? Why hadn't he done more to protect him? Why?

Then, he blinked and the real world slotted back into place. He looked back at Bentley's hood. Those scratches weren’t going to buff out easily. Worse were the large dents currently catching the sunlight and throwing it into his own unprotected eye. They were deep and wide and he desperately hoped they weren’t all the way to the engine block.

Pressing down on the clutch, Crowley bit back the whine that wanted to slither from his throat as the muscles in his left thigh clenched and then began to release before thinking better of it and instead contracting to an agonizing knot. He resolutely did not look down at it as he twisted the key and pumped the clutch, once, twice, the engine sputtered and died. He turned the key back and released the clutch. Again. Twist, pump, pump, sputter– this time the engine caught and the sputter steadied to a gentle purr. 

"That's my girl," he muttered, realizing as he did just how badly speaking hurt his throat. Had he yelled? He didn't _recall_ shouting, but he supposed he must have done. After a few seconds spent listening to the quiet hum of the engine Crowley jiggled the stick to find the sweet spot just to the right of neutral that she preferred to the canonical first gear position. Then, he slowly lifted his foot from the clutch as he pressed the other foot to the gas and slowly pulled away from the intersection. There was a strange, stuttery feeling when he shifted from first to second gear, but the Bentley had never yet failed to respond to him and it seemed even grievous bodily harm wouldn't hold his girl back. Crowley let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding as one fear was eased back into its box for now. 

Alright, then. 

Good. 

He glanced over at the loose pile of bones and body odor crumpled in the passenger seat and sighed. 

To the A&E it was…

* * *

Crowley didn’t keep his beloved Bentley on the street. That would be just asking for her to get banged up or scratched, either on purpose by some spiteful prick or on accident from the carelessness of others, and he couldn’t abide that thought. So, true to form, Crowley paid to rent a bay in a small repair shop nearby. He rarely did any work on the Bentley during business hours, so it felt more or less private and he knew that the owner liked having the car around as a discussion piece when he wasn’t driving it. 

Besides, secured parking spaces in London were still prohibitively expensive, even as far outside of downtown as he was. Even this arrangement would be outside his means (since he didn’t exactly make enough to pay for a private garage large enough to work on the Bentley when repairs were needed _and_ store an extra container of petrol along with the tools and anything else he might need in a pinch) if he hadn’t agreed to occasionally help out around the garage in exchange for a reduced rent. The owner wasn’t what he would call pleasant or anything in that neighborhood, but he also wasn’t around all that often these days, not since he’d hired a manager and started spending more time with his old war buddies. 

Eve had declared the garden center closed for the day that morning, slapping a sign to the window with the words “No Plants Today, Try the Buckingham Gardens. They’re Free” written in jagged sharpie across it. The unplanned day off was in part because Eve was busy with her charities (Gala season was nearly upon them and Eve was always especially harried in the lead-up) and in part because Crowley sorely needed some time off to heal. He, of course, was not actually taking that time off because it sounded dead boring. 

The very idea of sitting in bed staring at his wall of trellised plants or tracing over the wisteria and trumpet vines that peeked in through the window from where he’d been encouraging them to grow around the shed and being unable to do _anything productive or useful_ with his time made him antsy. The urge to make sure he was never slacking off, never giving Eve a reason to wonder why she’d taken a chance on him, was a colony of ants beneath his skin, driving him to move even when he had no energy at all. 

So, instead of lounging about, he dragged himself to his feet and slogged it the half-mile to the garage. His hip was acting up something fierce and he moved with a rather pronounced limp, but he was determined to ignore it. Injuries from an accident were one thing, he could accommodate those with only mild ill-humor, but he refused to allow his bloody hip to slow him down. He grit his teeth and ignored the way the muscles around his joint felt simultaneously loose, as if his leg might come free of its socket at any moment, and clenched so tightly he could barely move to take a step. 

When he pushed up the garage door and hit the light his first thought was that he’d come to the wrong place. This.... this wasn’t his girl. He was suddenly glad he’d ignored the pain and Eve’s instructions to ‘rest your fool head, dammit’ because seeing the Bentley _hurt._ Far worse than the physical pain in his leg or his ribs or his head. He’d managed to coax her all the way home after dropping Hastur off to the A&E but he’d been too bleary, too confused to do more than back her into the bay and leave a scribbled note for Shadwell explaining that he’d be by in a day or so to start working on her. 

He took one stuttering step forward, catching his weight with his left hand on the crumpled hood. The metal was cool beneath his fingers and he scowled. She wasn’t meant to be cool, she was meant to thrum with life and the steady warmth of a purring engine. His fingernail caught on a fleck of paint that was peeling back from one of the larger dents. 

The worst of it was that he wasn’t even sure what Beez had wanted from him other than driving Hastur to the A&E. He didn’t know if he was meant to stick around or tell any lies for them and the lack of knowing ate at him. At least, since he didn’t know how Hastur’s injuries were gotten—they _had_ looked like from a crash, even if Hastur hadn’t been in his car—it wasn’t a lie at all when he told the intake nurse he “didn’t see it happen.” His own dazed expression and the blood across his face had likely helped with that as well, even if they almost didn’t let him go home for fear of a concussion. He snorted, sliding his nail under another bit of paint. Honestly, he probably had one, but he woke up the next morning so all’s well and that tripe. 

He sighed and gave the Bentley a light pat. 

“Enough wallowing,” he told her, “We can’t let anyone see you with those dents, it’s just embarrassing really.” The Bentley sat still and silent beside him and he huffed a laugh past his sore ribs. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, “I know, it’s too quiet if I’m talking to you.” He used the side of the car as support to cross to the back of the garage and press an old _Best of_ tape into the cassette player atop the tool bench. Then, he paused to catch his breath as the first notes of Killer Queen filled the space. 

“Alright, let’s get you looking pretty again,” he told the car. 

He was sifting through the supplies he’d need, making a careful inventory of what he’d already bought and what he’d need to borrow from Shadwell, when his phone buzzed with a notification. He warily pulled it from his pocket, hoping not to see anything from Beez, Hastur, or Ligur. He really couldn’t handle dealing with them today. 

[:sheep: :books: Wednesday 10:00 am] _I didn’t hear from you yesterday, are you alright?_

Fuck. Crowley swore loudly as he overbalanced trying to reach for a spanner, twisting to catch himself and lean heavily against the Bentley’s warped body. He shifted so his hand would be free to tap out a reply without sending himself to the floor (he really wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up if he fell). 

[Crowley :milky_way: Wednesday 10:01 am] _Shit, sorry. I was at the hospital. I forgot to text._

[:sheep: :books: Wednesday 10:23 am] _Oh, I hope they’re alright._

Crowley squinted at his phone screen, the words were blurring a little more than normal and he was positive the letters weren’t meant to be in that order, though for the life of him he couldn’t parse exactly how they _were_ supposed to be. His head pounded. 

[Crowley :milky_way: Wednesday 10:41 am] _‘S fine._

There, that seemed like a safe bet…

Crowley spent the next few hours measuring the dents and scratches on the surface of the car, muttering encouragements to her as he worked; little things like, “Don’t worry, girl, we’ll get you back in no time,” and, “I promise this won’t hurt, just gotta get your curves back in shape, don’t we?” He temporarily defaced the black surface with a white chalk marker, carrying a bright hand-light in order to make sure he missed nothing, not even that little nick in the sliver of the rim right in front that may have honestly been a rock from the road kicked up a while back rather than from the crash. But, he was already working on repairs, so he marked that too as an area of interest. 

Crowley lost himself in the rhythm of taking care of his girl, humming along to the tape, and by the time it had flipped over to the B-side he’d managed to forget the aches and pains that plagued him. He crawled along the concrete floor with a light in one hand and a marker in the other and, after realizing the SUV had been quite a bit taller than the Bentley, climbed up on top of her hood to survey the roof of the car for any necessary repairs. After his first pass for dents, he paused to attempt to replace the driver’s door window. Usually, this wasn’t too hard of a task even without any fancy lifting tools since he had the correctly sized windows and an extra windshield stowed in the garage _just in case_. But, today his wrist wouldn’t bear the weight of it and he found himself unable to steady the pane. His first attempt ended in failure when his hand twitched and he bobbled the pane, sending it to the floor with an almighty crash. He flexed his hand and stretched his wrist as best as he could without aggravating it further before turning to his the last spare window he had. Then, he sighed and gave it up as a bad job, he just didn’t trust his wrist to work as it should for long enough. The broken shards of the first failed attempt were large and glaring, but he swept it up with a sigh and went back to marking up the car during dent patrol. 

He’d figure something out, he always did. The new guy Shadwell had hired was meant to be by at some point this week, maybe he could help out. 

The work was hard on his hip, but he was used to ignoring that, and it was hard on his broken wrist (it’s just a hairline fracture, no harm really), and it was hard on his shoulder and ribs, but the pain was just as easy to forget as time was when Crowley got like this. Fixating on the one thing that he could do something about, something with visible results that he could fix with his own hands in real-time. No waiting for it to grow and hope it didn’t disappoint him like his plants, no hoping it would come back to him like a shattered relationship, nothing pesky like feelings or organic bodies. Just him and his car and the tools in his garage for fixing her up and making her look perfect.

A quiet burring noise filtered through Freddie’s crooning, making Crowley blink and slingshot him back into reality. A message, from who? He unfolded himself with a groan of pain from where he’d ended up leaning over the hood of the Bentley to reach another small dent he’d seen from a specific angle and kept losing when he walked around.

 _Oh, was that the time already?_ He thought to himself, pursing his lips. Fuck, that meant he’d missed shoving something in his face for lunch. And his pain meds. That explained a lot, actually, about how he was feeling at the moment. Luckily, the sharper pain meant he was thinking just a bit more clearly than he had been earlier in the day and he was able to parse the text with only mild frustration. 

[:sheep: :books: Wednesday 5:32 pm] _My test came back, I got nearly full marks!_

[Crowley :milky_way: Wednesday 5:46 pm] _That’s great! We should celebrate_

Crowley sighed and cradled his head in his hand at the headache that was slowly building. He was happy for Aziraphale, honestly, he really was. But, the first pang of _he won’t need me anymore_ hit him somewhere deep in his gut, yanking his stomach down like there was a fish hook in it. 

[:sheep: :books: Wednesday 5:47 pm] _Are you free?_

[Crowley :milky_way: Wednesday 5:47 pm] _Yeah, suppose I could be._

[:sheep: :books: Wednesday 5:47 pm] _Lovely!_

Crowley let his head fall into his hands again and pushed himself to stand. Well, Aziraphale probably wouldn’t want to meet for a while, they tended to aim for later evenings so the other man could finish his grading. He could get some more repairs done before having to leave to meet him. He’d rather not let the other man see his car in such a state if he can help it. The Bentley was the one thing in his life nice enough for Azira to be seen with, he refused to allow that to end. 

* * *

The Sainsbury wine selection was... dismal at best. Aziraphale might not enjoy his biyearly trips home, but at the very least his father’s contacts in the wine industry ensured that the offerings on the table were always of the highest quality. He looked between the £5 Argentine Bonarda in his hand and the £4 Californian Merlot on the shelf, a light frown creasing the skin between his brows. The Bonarda’s undertones of cherry and fig would go well with the little chocolate cake in the paper box in his satchel. He did enjoy a good nose-forward grape and the Bonarda was an excellent example. But, the Merlot... He still didn’t have a good feel for Anthony’s wine preferences and Merlot was always a safe option. Warm, dry climates were good for chocolate and California was always a safe bet for entirely drinkable wines. 

He set down the Bonarda and picked up the Merlot. Perhaps the Bonarda was too fruity, he’d hate to overwhelm the delicate ganache. 

But, the cherry...

He sighed and picked up the Bonarda again, tucking it into the crook of his arm. They were less than ten quid total, he’d take both and be sure that he’d not made the wrong decision. 

He wanted to celebrate after all, presenting the wrong wine would only put a damper on the fizzing, bubbling happiness that frothing up through him. The reason for this happiness was tucked up next to the little cake box, a sheet of paper, still covered in red pen but bearing a grudging check-mark in the top left corner. 

Aziraphale took the bottles of wine as well as a pre-prepared selection of cheeses and cured meats to the self-serve till. He’d been to this location a number of times as it was just around the corner from his flat and the young woman currently working the manned-till was terrifying to him in a way he couldn’t quantify. He’d stumbled his way through far too many stilted conversations with her to want to subject himself to that today. 

The till beeped loudly at him as he scanned each item. 

“Oh shush you,” he muttered, but even the scolding red light and imprecation to place his items in the bag if you please couldn’t dampen his mood. 

He would be seeing Anthony for the first time in nearly a week and he’d received his first good grade on an astronomy assignment and nothing could bring him down today. They’d been meant to meet a few days ago, but Anthony’s friend had needed to go to the hospital and Aziraphale would never expect him to ignore a friend in need for some silly astronomy lessons. 

So, with a bit of a bounce in his step, he took his bags from beside the till and even managed a small smile to the woman as he passed. She did not even glance up from the book she was abusing (she always seemed to be writing on the pages of what appeared to be library books and it was only through the restraint learned at dozens of formal family dinners that Aziraphale managed to not snatch the poor things away from her). 

Aziraphale made his way to the bus stop and caught the crosstown. At their last meeting, Anthony had mentioned being able to see the spire of the old cathedral from his window and there was a stop just near there. It did not occur to him until the bus was pulling away, leaving him standing on the pavement, that he didn’t actually know where Anthony lived. Moreover, he had no idea if the other man was even home. 

Oh, this had been a _terrible_ idea all around. He pulled his phone out and dialed Anthony’s number. As it rang he wondered what he’d been thinking, Anthony might not even be home, he probably had plans, friends he was spending time with or work to do or maybe he’d be going to the hospital again, Aziraphale had no clue if his friend had needed to stay past the one night. 

“‘Lo,” Anthony’s voice crackled over the speaker. 

There was a strange thing that Aziraphale had begun to notice recently; when he heard Anthony’s voice all the frantic, tumbling thoughts he couldn’t escape seemed to quiet down just a bit. They still clamoured for his attention, still whispered terrible things to him, but it was easier to ignore them and focus on the present moment, on the warm voice and man behind it. 

“Hello, it’s Aziraphale,” he said because Anthony didn’t sound like he knew who he was talking to and it seemed only polite to make sure they were on the same page. 

“Oh.” There was a low clattering sound and a shuffle before Anthony spoke again, “Hey.” 

Aziraphale found himself smiling. “I find myself on your side of town,” he said, instinctively hiding the commitment he’d made to making this evening happen, “With some wine and nibbles and wondered if I might join you?” 

“What?” Anthony asked. He sounded slightly distracted, distant in a way he wasn’t normally. 

“Unless of course, you’re busy,” Aziraphale hurried to reassure him, “I realize we didn’t have plans and you might not want to-”

“No!” Anthony cut in, then, softer, “No, I’d like to see you. I’m, uh, I’m at six-eighteen Saint Jude Way. You can-” There was a loud clatter and Anthony cut himself off with a muttered invective. “Entrance is around the back,” he said after a moment. “But, I’ve got to,” his voice faded out before growing strong again, “Need m’hands.” 

“Of course,” Aziraphale told him. “I’ll be by post-haste.” 

He hung up just as he could head Anthony begin to curse again. Then, sliding the phone back in his pocket, he pulled out the paper map of the greater London area that he kept in his satchel. He traced his finger along the road he stood on, looking for Saint Jude. Oh good, it was only a handful of streets away. He patted the map closed happily and started on his way. 

* * *

Aziraphale shifted back and forth from foot to foot for a few moments, peering up at the faded awning outside the little garage. The name... made no sense at all, no matter how he tried to parse it. He did hope Anthony hadn’t had a hand in choosing it. 

_Shadwell’s Fixwell Autobody_

The garage was nothing like he was thinking when he had allowed himself to think on nebulous plans for the night. Perhaps it was his excitement getting the best of him, or maybe it was the magnetic pull of Anthony’s presence that he missed after not seeing him for so long. Their tutoring sessions had become twice a week, almost like a secondary class really, just for him. He gripped the bag containing the wine closer and firmly pushed away thoughts of what else he’d like Anthony to teach him with those lovely, long hands of his.

He screwed up his courage, telling himself Anthony had said it was alright for him to come by, and rapped softly on the door. The hollow banging sound almost made him snatch his hand back. But no, don’t be silly, it’s just a garage, it’s just Anthony Crowley, nothing to be afraid of here no matter what the vaguely nauseous feeling in his gut might try to convince him was the actual truth. 

“Door’s open!” Anthony’s voice called from inside, muffled and tinny as it filtered through concrete walls and the metal door. Aziraphale breathed in once deep and let it out slowly, like Dr. Haistwell recommended, and then pushed open the door at the handle, revealing the vintage car Aziraphale had seen a few times before in passing parked next to the kerb by his flat or the coffee shop. 

Anthony was laid out on his back, halfway beneath the car. One leg was canted out to the side, the other stretched, long and lean, towards Aziraphale. 

He should say hello, should say anything at all, but Aziraphale’s tongue was suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth as his eyes trailed down the flat planes of Crowley’s stomach and sides where his shirt had ridden up to reveal tanned skin. Aziraphale absently wondered if the skin just below his ribs would taste like summer sunlight when kissed, if it would feel as warm as it looked against his lips. And, was that a _tattoo_? There was a thick rope of black that snaked over Crowley’s hip from behind.

“Oh good _lord_ ,” Aziraphale murmured to himself, tearing his eyes away to look anywhere else, anywhere safer. He wasn’t quite quick enough to miss the muscles under Anthony’s skin shift and tense as he pulled himself out from underneath the car. 

“Sorry,” Anthony’s voice called his gaze back and Aziraphale couldn’t help but mirror his wry smile, both thankful and not that the damned shirt was firmly back in place. “Bit of a mess,” Anthony said, gesturing with a hand towards the car and himself in one fell swoop.

“No, no, it’s alright. I like a mess.” Aziraphale replied, before realizing exactly what he’d said and stumbling over his own feet in his hurry to turn and hide his blush under the pretense of finding a place to set the wine and cake. “I– I mean that mess is fine, you’ve seen my flat, so you know. Mess– it’s– nothing to worry about, that!” 

Anthony huffed a laugh and pulled himself to a standing position from where he was on the floor with a hand on the car and another on his knee. A slim black brace on his wrist caught Aziraphale’s eye and he gasped in surprise.

“Anthony!” Aziraphale surged forward, too caught up in his own worries to think, “You got hurt?!”

Anthony reared back, his eyes going wide, before he managed to steady himself against a table coated in oil and grease. 

“Oh, uh yeah,” he muttered, a light flush high on his cheeks as he looked away from Aziraphale. (And lord help Aziraphale, but he wanted to touch that blush to feel the way it heated the pads of his fingers and maybe to drag those fingers down Anthony’s face and- He cut that thought off before it could spiral from his control). “I– didn’t I tell you I was at the A&E?” 

Aziraphale blushed in sudden mortification. He crossed the short space between them, pausing just too far away to touch. “I thought you were visiting someone, Anthony! Not _in_ the hospital, are you alright?!” He reached out towards the hand in a brace and brushed the back of it with his fingertips. It felt surprisingly intimate, and it was a testament to Aziraphale’s self-control that he didn’t pull the taller man in for an embrace. He wanted to hold him close and reassure himself that he was alright, that this sudden and unexpected worry was unfounded. 

“‘M fine, Aziraphale,” Crowley muttered, gently pulling his hand from Aziraphale’s touch and stepped back a bit, reasserting his personal space. Aziraphale scolded himself, there was no call for making Anthony uncomfortable, just because he couldn’t manage to control his own emotions. “Just a bit of an accident, ‘s fine.”

Aziraphale huffed but nodded, a sprained wrist _was_ relatively minor, and Anthony didn’t look harmed other than a bruise at his temple. Two minor injuries, just bruising, it was fine really. 

Just bruising, it’s fine. He repeated it a few times, focusing on the fact that Crowley was clearly here and just as clearly happy to see him. 

The wrist must have seemed worse than it was, that’s why he was in the A&E. It was fine.

“Well, then,” he said, forcing false cheer into his voice, “I brought some cake from _Monmouth’s_ , and some red wine. I wasn’t sure which you’d like more to celebrate with, so I got both I thought might go with the cake.” He was rambling, surely, but that was fine too. It was freeing, in a way, to like (oh he _liked_ Anthony didn’t he? When had that happened?) someone like Anthony who already knew Aziraphale was such a mess, and knowing there wasn’t a chance in Heaven Anthony would like him back. Just here as a tutor, Aziraphale reminded himself sternly, so there’s no use drooling over him, once you’re finished with the course then he’ll be done with you.

He refused to allow himself to think about why that hurt so very badly.

* * *

Crowley smiled to himself and hid a slight wince at how shifting his weight unconsciously twinged at his hip uncomfortably. Well, painfully, but he couldn’t take any meds without eating, Eve would probably actually kill him when she somehow, inevitably, found out. She always seemed to know when he’d done something less than clever in regards to his health. 

“Yeah, sure, I don’t know much about wine other than red and white.” He looked around and smirked when he caught sight of a clean towel (stained maybe, but clean currently) and laid it out on the floor. “Here, everything else’s got oil on it. Brave of you to wear white to a garage…”

A warmth suffused his belly, the rich golden flood of light that felt like how he remembered drinking scotch felt as he watched Aziraphale blush again. 

“Well, I didn’t really think to myself, ‘best wear light colors, Anthony will surely be impressed with my bravery when I show up without car grease to a repair shop,’ I– thought that maybe you’d be home.” Aziraphale murmured demurely, the hint of teasing bastard Crowley so loved underscoring his words and causing Crowley’s chest to clench. Fuck, that hurt his ribs. 

“Wanted to impress me did you?” He replied with a grin some might call shit-eating (for example, Eve). But then a thought occurred to him, “And, yanno, you could call me Crowley.” He ran his uninjured hand through his hair, suddenly nervous.

“Oh, right, I’m sorry.” Aziraphale said with a dejected sort of frown that was trying to be a stiff-upper-lip smile. Crowley frowned, why was he upset? He didn’t think-

Crowley resisted the urge to groan, once again he was going to be done in by fucking posh societal norms. He tried to find the words to explain what he intended without making it all worse. “I just mean, since we’re friends and all, I think, unless you don’t want to be of course,” Crowley tripped over his tongue in an attempt to explain himself, “Friends I mean. It’s just that, what I mean is that I prefer Crowley. From friends. Don’t really like Anthony…” 

He watched as Aziraphale’s light frown shifted to a delighted smile, loose around the corners of his mouth and large enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes. 

_Oh no_ , he thought, _this might be a real problem._

“Alright, I’d be happy to, then. And yes, we’re friends, _definitely_ .” The way that natural, comfortable smile of Aziraphale’s filled his chest with an aching _want_ made it one-hundred percent worth making a fool of himself. 

“Yeah, great, friends,” Crowley repeated, a little breathless and smiling back. Friends was a good place to be, he thought to himself, he could use a good friend. “Cake, you said? There’s some takeout forks around here somewhere, no cups though for the wine…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Pictures made to go along with this chapter](https://d20owlbear.tumblr.com/post/637454674752110592/hello-nerds-i-am-here-again-with-more-bullshit) are pie-charts on Why the _fuck_ are they like this that came about when Cassieoh and I were writing.


	7. Of Vintage Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to yell at us. We deserve it for this chapter (in a good way hopefully!)

“You forgot your pin.” Haistwell looked up from the stack of papers in their hands. Eve stood before them, with her hands on her hips, looking expectantly at the lapel of their favorite tweed blazer. They glanced down. “Oh bugger it all,” they muttered, “It seems I did. They/them if you please.” 

She nodded once, decisively and grabbed up one of the ever-present name tags from her own clipboard, scrawling  _ Doctor Haistwell, they/them _ across it in spiky letters. She peeled it off and handed it over. 

“Must I?” They knew they were whinging, but really. A paper name tag. They had  _ some  _ dignity. 

Eve stared at them, brows raised expectantly. Haistwell sighed and, with great (only mildly overacted) reluctance affixed the sticker to their lapel. 

“There we go, are you happy, Ms. Sargon?” they asked, sarcasm that had begun to edge towards fondness suffusing their words. 

“Incandescent,” she said. “Can’t you tell? I’m practically giddy with it.” Her voice was dry, but the look she shot their direction sparkled and Haistwell grinned. They did so love these weekends spent with Eve. Very few people could keep up with them—on any level really—it was delightful to know that they could count on Eve Sargon and their biweekly volunteering meetings. They’d been friends since secondary school but, before they managed to coordinate their individual charitable outings, their schedules had made catching up an affair for email. Not that they’d actually intended to ally their efforts in this way; rather, they had both been working for their respective organizations for years before the opportunity to coordinate an event together arose. The first annual joint affair between OutLondon, for which Haistwell was a board member, and the Saint Benedict Youth Mission, where Eve had been volunteering twice a week for decades, had been a roaring success and led to an ongoing partnership. Today they were at a public park, offering haircuts and a hot meal to anyone who wanted one. 

“They all seem cheerful today,” Haistwell murmured, watching a few teens walk away with their plates piled high. One of them, the tallest and clearly oldest, was sporting a fresh buzzcut, a split lip, and the biggest smile Haistwell had ever seen her wear. 

“Grace apparently convinced that bastard father of hers that even if he ‘won’t have that rot’ under his roof it would look bad for her to starve, so she’s been given access to her debit card again.” Eve sounded just as conflicted as Haistwell felt. 

“But she’s not having to go back to them?” they confirmed. 

“No.” Eve pulled out a few more loaves of bread and began putting sandwiches together for the to-go bags. “She’s still staying with Tracy and Devon.” 

Haistwell nodded. Tracy and Devon were two of their successes; teens who’d been scared and alone, but who plucked up the courage to come to the OutLondon center and ask for help. They were now the proud mothers of a genuinely terrible little dog named Winston and had an open-door policy for anyone in need of a place to sleep. 

“Good,” they said. Eve handed them a plate piled high with sandwiches and gestured to the small box of plastic baggies. They began assembling the bags. “And, what about River, did xie ever come to talk to the Father?” 

Eve gave a little non-committal hmm. The Saint Benedict Youth Mission was nominally Anglican, though Haistwell was well aware that it was also a bit of a dumping ground for those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fit themselves into the box of official church doctrine. Father Wainwright was a kindly man who made no secret about the fact that he hadn’t always been either of those things, and who was well versed in helping young people figure out who they were meant to be. 

“He’s been so busy lately,” she explained after a moment. “With all the changes in the church. But, I’ve seen River around and I know they had tea last Thursday.” 

Haistwell nodded, sure that Father Wainwright would ensure River got any help xie needed. 

They worked in comfortable silence for a bit, anticipating each other’s needs and actions with the ease of many years spent doing the same tasks. It was probably a bit sad, but Haistwell considered Ms. Sargon one of ens closest friends, for all that they’d never been comfortable calling her by her first name. 

“How’s your boy?” they asked just as the last of the hot dinners was claimed and the teens settled in to eat, falling upon their food with the sort of ravenous hunger that only someone in both the throes of puberty and food insecurity can feel. 

Eve watched the small crowd before them. The teens were growing steadily more raucous as they finished their meals and settled in. A few had pulled out their phones and were taking pictures of each other. 

“Good,” she said, after a long moment. “He’s all aflutter about some new boy he’s been seeing. Spends all his free time with textbooks and diagrams. Studying, he calls it.” 

Haistwell laughed. “I’m sure,” they said, “We called it studying too, if you’ll remember.” 

That started a laugh of her own from Eve. She reached over and jabbed at their ribcage, grinning when they dodged away with the ease of old practice. Eve’s fingers were like tiny javelins and Haistwell had learned long ago that it was best to avoid contact when at all possible. 

“Hey,” she said, “No fair bringing up old business. We tabled all that and you know it.” 

Haistwell took a step away, out of jabbing range, before picking up the box of protein bars to be distributed into the food bags. 

“Hmm, I’m not sure I remember voting yes on that motion, Councilor.” 

“I’d say your ‘yes’ came when you didn’t say anything during my wedding  _ nearly thirty years ago _ ,” Eve snipped. 

“Yes, well,” Haistwell sniffed, “I was a bit busy holding your massive wad of tissues and making sure your Auntie Bea didn’t get into the wine too early, so my deepest apologies.” They handed her the last of the bags before settling down into one of the lawn chairs to watch as the kids finished eating and began to squabble over who would get to go first for their haircuts. 

Eve put the bags into the cooler and closed the lid. She joined them in the chairs, groaning as she settled in. 

“We’re getting old, Darby,” she said, rubbing at the base of her neck.

“Don’t remind me, dear,” they replied. “So, he’s really happy?” Haistwell might never have met the boy she took in (he was apparently flighty, especially around authority figures) but they felt a sort of proprietary pride in him. They hoped that one day he might be comfortable enough that Eve would invite them over for dinner. They missed the family dinners with Adam and the boys from before. Haistwell twisted and picked up two water bottles from the table, handing one to Eve and cracking the seal on the other for themself. 

“He’s really, really happy,” Eve said. She fiddled with the cap of the water bottle. “I’m a bit concerned, if I’m honest. He’s just-” She paused and took a long drink. “He’s fallen so hard and I’m not sure he’s ever had anyone he cared about actually care for him back, not in the way he does.” 

“What do you mean?” The haircut line was forming and as Haistwell watched the teens jostled about, pushing one of the younger ones towards the front. They were a newcomer, gaunt in the way only a teen can manage and wearing baggy clothes, their shoulders hunched forward and their hair pulled into the tightest, shortest bun they could manage. The others were grinning and pushing and generally making sure that they made it to the front of the line first. 

“He’s a fool,” Eve said. Her blunt assessment drew Haistwell’s attention back to the conversation at hand. They raised their eyebrows. “He’s not a do-things-halfway type, my boy,” she explained, “I’m not sure I’ve seen him without a textbook or those little diagrams for weeks. He’s always studying and I’ve heard him telling that snake of his about the boy more than once.” 

“I’m sure it’ll work out, he’s got you to poke him into making the right decisions after all,” Haistwell said with a grin. They did so love young love. So often on campus they were confronted with the negative fallout of young people’s affairs, it was nice to hear about the early days when it was all sharing stories with pets and trying to learn about what the person was interested in. 

“And what about you? Your students are always up to something.” 

“Ah, not the current cohort. They’re all tragically boring. Studious types,” they shuddered. 

“Oh no,” Eve’s voice was dry, “I’m shocked and appalled. How dare your doctoral candidates be studious.” 

Haistwell laughed, “Yes, well. It just means I don’t have any good gossip for you. Except-”

Eve perked up, “Except?”

“Azira, you know my third year? He’s got this new tutor that he keeps telling me about. He’s very into his lessons,” Haisted paused and took a long drink from their water bottle, “Very into those…. Lessons.” Eve laughed. 

“Is that what you academic types are calling it now?” Eve crowed, smacking Haistwell’s hand away when they took a gentle swipe at her, trying their best to be disapproving despite the smile on their face.

“No, and you know it, Sargon! You are, after all, an academic yourself,” Haistwell raised an eyebrow at Eve, smirking.

“Might be,” she said, “But  _ I _ escaped to the real world before academia poisoned me and I stopped being able to walk a mile without breathing heavy.” Eve shot back.

“Hey! It’s at least a mile from my desk to the staff cafeteria!” Haistwell laughed, and only seconds later Eve joined in. 

“It doesn’t count if you have grad students fetch your sandwiches,” she told them. “Hypothetical miles do not help keep that waist trim.” She dodged their hands and jabbed at them again, dagger-like fingers targeted at their hipbone. 

“Oof, stop it you demon,” they laughed. 

The breeze picked up, ruffling the fringe of their hair and the door to the little hairdresser’s caravan opened. 

The teen who had gone in with a tight bun that surely pulled enough to cause headaches, tumbled out with a buzz cut, their remaining hair short and dried fluffy, messy tear tracks on their face. They came to a stop in front of their friends, standing confidently, or at least not the same sort of hunched-in shame from before. The line crowded around the caravan cheered in the way only teenagers could, high on the euphoria of social contact with those like them in a place they could safely be themselves. Haistwell smiled widely and winked when the kid looked over, more than happy to provide some sort of parental figure approval. That’s what they and Eve were there for after all. They built these spaces as best they could, helped the kids as best they could, and gave out hugs where needed. Sometimes the kids were able to go home, back to the families they thought lost to them forever, and sometimes they made new families from here with the others who were just discovering who they had always been meant to be. Whichever way things went, Haistwell was proud of them and delighted in these little moments. 

“God, you’re such a sap,” Eve said next to them, but her voice was thick and when they glanced over her eyes shone so they only sighed and reached over, taking her hand and squeezing tightly. 

It was nice to have a place to belong. 

* * *

Aziraphale and Crowley were three-quarters into the bottle of Bonarda, passing it back and forth and drinking from it directly like reprobates they were. They took turns regaling each other with childhood anecdotes (Aziraphale) and tales of stupendously bad customers (Crowley) and generally chattering happily away all the while studiously avoiding the thought at the front of each of their minds. 

The more they drank, the more they became aware of how long the other one’s lips lingered on the rim of the bottle. 

Aziraphale’s breath hitched at the thought of placing his lips where Crowley’s had been each time it was passed over. He was so preoccupied scolding himself that he completely failed to hear Crowley’s breath stutter and stop in the same way every time Aziraphale drank, thinking much the same thing. So, Aziraphale scolded himself and swore to stop thinking such things only to immediately fail whenever he handed the bottle back to Crowley and the other man paused with the mouth of the bottle just brushing his lips, entranced as those lips slowly parted. In between drinking they finished up the two slices of cake (Crowley had only eaten half of one, pushing the rest of his towards Aziraphale with an indulgent smile). Aziraphale had only just finished licking his fork clean when Crowley shot up from the concrete floor with a wobble.

“Fuck!” He grunted loudly, nearly hip-checking the Bentley as he stumbled and tried to find his balance. “I forgot to take the bloody pills– fuck.” He staggered over to the tool cart and shuffled around for his bag, a triumphant noise escaping him when he pulled a silvery blister pack of prescription medication from the little paper bag. 

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called after him, using the car to pull himself to a standing position where he could see what the lanky man was doing. He frowned in mild disapproval when he saw the packet in Crowley’s hands. “Crowley! You can’t take pain medication!”

Crowley scoffed in response and waved his hand in front of him, indicating Aziraphale should pass over the bottle. “Watch me.”

“Crowley! That will ruin your poor liver!” Aziraphale scolded with pursed lips.

Crowley only rolled his eyes. “‘S fine,” he said, pleased when it came out with only the slightest hint of a slur, despite how the world was tilting to the left on him. “I’m here for a good time, not a long time, angel. Now give it here.”

“No. Shan’t.” Aziraphale clutched the wine closer to his chest and frowned. He’d drunk about as much as Crowley, but he’d eaten a bit more than Crowley, wasn’t befuddled by pain, and had a bit of mass on the lanky man, as such he was only just tipsy. Which, he realized with a start, meant he was currently responsible for his obviously out-of-his-mind tut– friend. 

“And why the bloody hell not?” Crowley frowned back, his eyebrows furrowed above the sunglasses he still wore. Aziraphale marveled at how he could see in the dim shop, especially after a few drinks. Crowley crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and placed them akimbo on his hips, leaning forward. Were the situation not so serious, Aziraphale might have laughed; Crowley looked far more like a petulant child than he did an angry adult.

But the situation  _ was  _ serious and Aziraphale couldn’t scrape together any good humor. 

“Because it will  _ hurt _ you, Anthon– Crowley!” Aziraphale replied waspishly. He stepped forward into Crowley’s space, wincing at the unintentional name mistake, but that was alright, he’d get used to it. But, he categorically refused to get used to any part of the self-destruction Crowley appeared to be trying to make him party to. 

Crowley stared at him for a long minute, before his frown fell into a pout and he huffed a sigh, leaning heavily on the table whilst clearly trying to look as if the table wasn’t the only thing keeping him upright. Alcohol was, unfortunately, decidedly terrible at actually numbing pain when it wasn’t only a flesh wound. Worse, as Crowley had discovered over the years since his original hip injury, alcohol could even exacerbate pain when nerves got involved.

He ached, the sort of sharp ache that felt like muscles just at the edge of cramping, waiting for him to move slightly wrong when they would clench tight and ruin him. 

“And what happened?” Aziraphale was saying when Crowley managed to drag his attention back from the pain racing through him. “I might not know cars, but even I can see that yours has obviously been hit, were you driving then?” Aziraphale immediately regretted the question as he watched Crowley’s face shutter, as sure as if he’d slammed down one of those rolling metal grates over his emotions, hiding and concealing them from view.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, turning away to look at the car, “S’ _ fine _ , Aziraphale. Got hit, was a crash-and-dash.” Crowley shrugged, a stilted, jerky little thing and Aziraphale nearly twisted his fingertips right off in his anxiety. Oh bother, he shouldn’t have asked at all. He was getting far too nosy for his own good and it was painfully obvious Crowley wanted nothing to do with him beyond the distant friendship with a tutor and a student. Nothing like what Aziraphale was finally realizing he wanted himself.  _ Blast it all, Aziraphale! Pull yourself together and stop asking hurtful questions _ , he reprimanded himself even as he forced his breathing to remain steady. 

Crowley watched him from the corner of his eye, allowing himself a count of thirty, before he couldn’t stomach the other man’s obvious anxiety any longer. “Nah, come on, s’fine, like I said. Someone wasn’ paying attention and they hit me. But, The Bentley is plenty tough and she saved me a lot of roughing up for sure. Don’t make ‘em like they used to.” 

Something in the base of his chest felt twisted up and wrong as he listened to Crowley laugh about the accident, bound up in the rancid bitterness that didn’t seem to match anything else he knew about Crowley. 

“Sounds like somethin’ my mum would’a said,” Crowley went on. 

Aziraphale, wisely he thought, decided not to touch that subject with a ten-foot pole while even mildly tipsy. Casting about for anything he could say, he scanned the car and when his gaze snagged on the window missing it’s glass he breathed a sigh of relief. “Did you want help with that?” He asked gently, gesturing at the car, and relaxed when the tension in Crowley uncoiled a bit at the obvious change of subject and lack of invasive questions. 

For his part, Crowley felt oddly put off balance. He’d been so ready for a fight, so ready to go on the offensive like it seemed he always had to do. He’d long ago filled himself with unconscious traps and tests and pitfalls, piling more and more on the paths of his heart until he felt like a castle dungeon, waiting for unsuspecting adventurers to destroy themselves upon the shards of him. But, Aziraphale seemed to navigate him with ease, deftly sidestepping even the most subtle of snares. Perhaps that was why he said, “Sure. I’d like that.” And then, instead of correcting himself with the ‘no, of course not, I can do it myself’ that came instinctively to him, Crowley bit his tongue and walked over to the last unbroken pane he had on hand. Aziraphale followed.

Crowley took a deep breath and shoved the aches and pains away. Aziraphale was seemingly willing to set aside that discussion and he wasn’t about to ruin this opportunity. 

“Alright, y’know how to do this?” Crowley asked, hefting up the glass with his good hand and looking over to Aziraphale. The blond snapped his eyes up to meet Crowley’s, dragging them away from where they had been admiring the muscles of his arm as they moved to compensate for the weight of the glass.

“Oh, ah, not really, no.” That is to say, he hadn’t the foggiest idea how any of this worked. Aziraphale didn’t even drive, let alone know about  _ auto repair _ , but that didn’t seem all that prudent to mention just then.

Crowley shrugged. “No worries. I mostly jus’ need you t’hold this steady, I can do the rest. But we’re gonna lift this up over the door and slide it into place, then I can do the rest.” Crowley was rather pleased with just how sober he’d managed to sound. Aziraphale squared his shoulders (and Crowley resolutely did  _ not _ have to look away from how those shoulders filled out his shirt), nodded, and took most of the weight of the glass so Crowley could finesse it into place. 

“Yeah, just like that, relax your hands a bit, you’re warping the glass a– yeah, good.” Crowley murmured, voice low and mesmerizing. Aziraphale blinked against the lassitude that wanted to fall over him. He would be happy to listen to Crowley talk in that tone for hours. But, it was over in moments, the process was far simpler than Aziraphale thought it might be. Perhaps because it was an older car? Or perhaps it was simply that cars mystified Aziraphale beyond reckoning. It almost felt fitting that Crowley could make inaccessible stars and cars seem so easy and simple to deal with. 

Aziraphale cleared his throat and tried very hard not to let his eyes linger on the line of Crowley’s forearm as he cranked the window lever to make sure it was in place properly. “Ah, is that it then?”

“Why?” Crowley threw a smile over his shoulder back at Aziraphale. Oh lord, Aziraphale thought, surely Crowley wasn’t aware of how very soft that smile was? He couldn’t know and still be bandying it about in public like that. “Want to help with more?”

Aziraphale, despite the way his stomach swooped as the full force of Crowley’s gaze and smile was turned onto him, nodded sharply. “Y– yeah. I’d like that,” he managed through a suddenly tight throat.

And so, the next few hours passed with them still stumbling a little over each other in these new, close quarters as they passing the second bottle back and forth and Crowley taught Aziraphale how to repair dents and divots in the metal of his car. It was loud, filthy, tiring work; everything Aziraphale should hate, but he was surprised to find he didn’t. Not even close. He didn’t even mind the grease stains he was positive he would never be able to expunge from his trousers. He’d long ago rolled up his sleeves in deference to the manual labor, 

Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he was allowed to like this as much as he did. Though his enjoyment had nothing at all to do with the activity and everything to do with the fact that Crowley had at one point wrapped his arms around Aziraphale, his pointy chin jabbing into Aziraphale’s shoulder, and encased Aziraphale’s hand in his own to show him how to use the hammer properly. In theory, Aziraphale  _ did  _ know how to use a hammer, but he was terrified of ruining Crowley’s car beyond what it was already, especially after warnings of ripping and tearing the metal if he hit too hard. So, in his concern he’d swung the other way and gone too slowly, too softly, prompting Crowley to quickly and firmly put him to rights.

The memory of it nearly made Aziraphale’s head spin. His back felt cold when Crowley stepped away, leaving him to focus on fixing some of the deeper dents that wouldn’t require any deft… hands. As he worked, Aziraphale’s eyes kept wandering to the floor where Crowley lay on his back, one knee bent and foot flat on the floor and his other leg crossed over it. The position granted Aziraphale an unholy and tempting view of his arse in tight jeans. Paired with the sliver of skin between the waistband of Crowley’s trousers and the hem of his shirt, and the way his hips looked like perfect handholds he could wrap his palms around—

_ Nope, back to the car, you ninny!  _ Aziraphale chided himself each time his thoughts wandered away from the platonic towards something a bit more profane. 

Of course, Crowley did the bulk of the work, crawling under the car and into the cab where necessary, moving this way and that without slowing down. All the while he worked to hide a limp, which became more and more obvious as the minutes slipped away. Eventually, even the wine could no longer mask the pain and his breaths came in hissed pants, making his shoulders tense and drawing Aziraphale’s eyes for new reasons.

“Oh, do stop, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed when he could stand it no longer. He set down the hammer. “Come here and stop making it worse!” He gestured for Crowley to come to him, pouting in a way that he never could manage while sober, the moment it seemed like the other man wouldn’t listen. Crowley waved him off at first and, in the end, it took his third-best pout, a head tilt, and a raised eyebrow before Crowley caved. He grumbled as he limped over to Aziraphale.

The blond sat himself down on the towel where they’d drunk the first bottle of wine. He patted spot in front of him, between his legs. “Sit, dear boy, I’m going to rub your shoulders. They look like they hurt and you can’t take any pain medication until tomorrow  _ at least _ .” 

Crowley stared at him, unsure quite how he should process what was happening. Eventually, he managed to say, “I’m older than you.” 

Aziraphale blinked innocently up at him, seemingly unbothered, and so Crowley gave in to his demands. 

Perhaps if the redhead put up more of a fight or protest, Aziraphale thought as he watched Crowley slowly lower himself to the ground, he might feel bad or cease doing it so much. But, when he capitulated so easily and when there was such an obvious smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, was it truly any wonder Aziraphale kept at it?

Crowley bit back a groan at the stiffness in his hip, waiting a few seconds after sitting before he crossed his legs and tangled his fingers together in his lap. He was far tenser than he’d been even only a few moments ago, the thrill of anticipation singing across his tired body. He flinched, startled despite himself when Azirpahale’s hands enveloped his shoulders. They were warm beyond belief and Crowley only just managed to keep himself upright against the overwhelming desire to melt into the soft man behind him. 

Then, Azirpahale dug his thumbs into his shoulders and Crowley found himself biting back a moan. Of pain, of bliss, he couldn’t tell past the rush of relief. All he knew was that Aziraphale seemed to know what he was doing as he slowly drew his thumbs down Crowley’s shoulder blades, the pressure just the comfortable side of agonizing. 

Firebrand hands worked Crowley’s shoulders and into the crook of his neck until the muscles relaxed forcibly and he was slowly melting into a puddle between Aziraphale’s legs. He fancied himself marked by their heat, a permanent sign that Aziraphale had touched him like this, something he might look upon tomorrow and know this moment was real. He had thought he felt almost sober while working on the Bentley, but now he drifted on a sea of wine and warmth and the feeling of Aziraphale’s hands on him. Every once in a while, when he adjusted positions slightly his bare fingertips would touch the soft skin at the base of Crowley’s neck, little sparks of contact that Crowley would have wanted to breathe into a flame had he been sober. As it was, he was powerless to stop the low groan. 

Aziraphale's hands paused for the briefest of seconds when he heard Crowley moan. He swallowed against the feeling rising in him. Oh, how he wished to allow himself to explore more. He lay his hands on Crowley’s shoulders, indulging in a stolen brush of skin-on-skin, before getting back to the task of helping his friend. Crowley’s muscles were so tense, tightly corded bands that twitched and fought him, but that also gave way before his insistence. When he reached the base of Crowley’s shoulder blade, Aziraphale allowed himself a second to think on what it would feel like to go lower, to trail his hands down Crowley’s spine and outward, fanning across his ribcage, holding him tight and feeling his chest expand as his breathing sped up. 

“Azira?” Crowley said lowly, sounding half-dazed. 

“Hmm?” He would place his fingers between each rib, counting them out and planning what treats he might bring to tempt Crowley. Then, he’d let them slide lower, to Crowley’s hips, feeling the way his skin jumped at the contact. Perhaps he’d lean forward, press his lips to the top of Crowley’s spine as his fingertips slipped under the waistband of his trousers-

“Aziraphale?” 

Aziraphale blinked and realized his hands had followed the path of his thoughts and were currently resting on Crowley’s hips. He swallowed. The hem of Crowley’s shirt was rucked up against Aziraphale’s inner thighs where he’d slumped into his ministrations. 

“Yes?” he managed. 

“Those, uh, aren’t my shoulders.” 

That started a quiet laugh from Aziraphale. 

“Yes,” he said. He pressed his fingers deeper into the tight muscles along Crowley's flanks, pulling another groan from the other man. Crowley settled further back against him. “I’m quite aware of that.” Crowley was close enough now that his hair tickled Aziraphale’s mouth when he spoke. 

“Feels good,” Crowley murmured. 

“Good, you deserve to feel good.” He winced, hoping he hadn’t just ruined the fragile mood. 

“Nghsh,” Crowley said. He shifted a bit, back and forth, clearly trying to find a more comfortable way to sit on the hard concrete. Then, he gasped as he moved wrong. Aziraphale felt the muscles under his left hand tighten and pull. 

“Oh, my dear,” he said, “Here, let me.” He ignored Crowley’s soft noises of protest and dug his fingers into the other man’s hip, pressing down and forward along the outside of his hip and upper thigh. 

“Oh god,” Crowley gasped. 

Aziraphale paused, “Am I hurting you?” 

Crowley shook his head against the cage of Aziraphale’s bowed forward shoulders. “Feels good,” he said, “Firs’ time in years.” 

Aziraphale’s heart ached, but he could do something about that. “Well,” he said, “let’s see what we can do about making you feel even better.” 

Slowly, giving Crowley time to protest before each movement, he shifted their positions so that he could reach more of Crowley’s left hip and thigh. He discovered that the best position necessitated him lifting his own right leg and allowing Crowley to lean back against it and his chest, at an angle which freed up Aziraphale’s left hand. He carefully did not look down at Crowley’s face, knowing he wouldn’t be able to handle seeing it just then. Instead, he focused on chasing down the knots in his thigh. He used his knuckles in long, slow strokes from the joining of his leg to his hip down towards his knee. With each one he could feel Crowley growing heavier against him, little sighs and low groans escaping the other man. 

“Better?” he whispered after a few minutes of work. Crowley’s head was now rested against the crook of his neck, tilted down so Aziraphale couldn’t see even the smallest sliver of expression. 

Crowley didn’t respond. Aziraphale paused in his efforts. 

“Crowley, dear?” he asked. 

“Mmhm?” Crowley’s voice was thick. 

“How do you feel?” Aziraphale had splayed his fingers out, letting them stretch across Crowley’s thigh. The very tip of his thumb had crossed that invisible line from ‘outer’ to ‘inner’ thigh. He’d never been more aware of a single joint. 

Crowley shifted a bit, settling even further into what Aziraphale was only just now realizing could only be distinguished from an embrace in the strictest of semantic senses. 

He swallowed again. 

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, tilting his head back so that Aziraphale could see his face. Oh how he loved hearing the endearment, for all that it was painful knowing that surely Crowley didn’t feel the same way he did. 

“Yes?” Aziraphale asked, angling his own face so he might see Crowley easier. He could feel the warm puff of the other man’s breath on his skin. It smelled like cheap wine and overly-sweet cake frosting. 

The knuckle of his thumb burned as desire swept through him. Crowley shifted again, tilting his head further towards Aziraphale. 

_ Lord help him.  _

* * *

_ 13 hours later _

“So, you see,” Azira said, gesturing to the little diagram he’d drawn on paper pulled from Haistwell’s neglected printer, “The issue is that the salt itself, while the primary reason these documents have been preserved so well due to its antimicrobial qualities, is also in danger of completely eradicating the details if it’s not removed carefully.” 

“Mmhm,” Haistwell said. Ens was rather preoccupied with their own work, but Azira didn’t seem to need ens to actively participate in this discussion. 

“Oh! And I’m not quite sure yet how to handle the older documents,” Azira went on, rifling through the large binder in which he kept scans of each document. He pulled out two sheets and set them on the desk. “See here,” he said pointing at the lower-left corner of what appeared to be a medieval book of hours, “This slight discoloration is common in the velum of the era, but look, it happens to exactly match the shade of ink the sailors on the Greygull used to note the positions of the comet they saw.” 

Haistwell looked up from ens own work. The Book of Hours page was noticeably damaged, but not irreparably so. 

“Okay,” ens said, “Have you taken Dr. Gerlinger’s seminar on velum?” Azira shook his head. 

“No, it hasn’t been offered since I started.” He wrung his hands. “I just don’t want to do anything wrong and ruin these. My funding is entirely dependent on this and I know it seems like I have enough to make ends meet but I really don’t want to have to call-”

Haistwell stood and came around the desk, settling into the chair beside Azira. Ens reached out and closed the binder. 

“That makes sense,” ens said. “It’s a reasonable thing to worry about. But,” and here ens paused to quirk a small smile at ens’ student, “Well, you know what I’m about to say don’t you?”

Azira took a slow breath and Haistwell prepared enself to guide the young man through his worries, to go over the steps they’d trod so many times before when Azira’s anxieties reared their head and swept him away in their talons. 

Then, something  _ new _ happened. 

Azira took a breath, shaky at first, but instead of freezing—instead of holding it in until he could go no longer without air—he took another. Normally, Haistwell had to encourage him to keep going. But, now he breathed in and then he did it again and again and after a few moments of silence the shakiness had calmed and he opened his eyes. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I know it’s silly to worry about it like that.” 

Haistwell shook ens head, still reeling with the overwhelming rush of pride. “No, no,” ens said, “Don’t ever apologise to me for your feelings, son.”

Azira chuckled a bit wetly, reaching up to wipe at his eyes with the heel of his hand. 

“I’m fine,” he insisted, “It just hit me again, you know? It’s been better, it really has. Crowley, that’s what Anthony prefers to be called, has helped a great deal. I just still-”

“Feel things because you’re a human being,” Haistwell cut in, knowing exactly what road Azira was traveling down. 

“Well, that’s just utter rot,” Azira said. “I’d rather prefer not to be I think.” 

Haistwell chuckled along with him before standing and clapping him on the shoulder once and crossed back to ens’ side of the desk. 

“You wouldn’t be you, if you were any other way, Aziraphale,” ens said, picking up the scanned pages from before, “Now, about this velum issue. I’ll set you up with Charlie, that’s Dr. Gerlinger, I think she’s been looking to hold the seminar again, but we’ll get you started at least before that.”

“Oh, thank you,” Azira breathed. He glanced at the clock and started. “Goodness, is that the time? I really should be running, Crowley wanted to meet for dinner. Something about having a new way to explain comets to me. Did you know the blasted things can have more than one tail?” He stood and swept his papers into his messenger bag. Then, he paused and looked up, “Unless... you wanted to talk about anything else? I think I told you everything and I’ll have the draft of chapter one to you by next Friday like we agreed, but if-”

“Off with you,” Haistwell said sternly, “I won’t have you late to meet your Crowley on my behalf.” 

Azira gave ens a blinding grin and, snatching up the last of his things, dashed from the office. 

The silence left in his wake was deafening and Haistwell couldn’t help but think on the changes ens had seen in Azira over the last month and a half. Today’s arrested panic attack was just the most recent and obvious of many moments. They seemed positive, though Haistwell was also far too experienced with the way the thrill of new infatuation could make everything seem better than it was, could hide the flaws in a person. 

Ens did so hope that Azira wasn’t leaning too heavily on someone who would turn out to be unreliable in the end.


	8. Of Empty Spaces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In text we have written out the emoji :like this: so that any text/screen reading software can read the fic as accurately as possible without losing some of the intention in translation.
> 
> That being said, the emoji used in the fic are below:
> 
> In Aziraphale's contacts, Crowley is [Crowley 🌌]  
> In Crowley's contacts, Aziraphale is [🐏📚]

  


Aziraphale heard his phone alert as he was settling into his favorite booth of the student cafe on the ground floor of the building across the way from the Athenaeum. He pulled it out and confirmed that the message was not a frantic request for help from a student before setting the phone down and going up to the counter to retrieve his tea. Only after he’d taken a long, fortifying sip did he open the message.

[Crowley :milky_way: Thursday 8:21 am] _Hey, sorry for falling asleep and being a general disaster last night._

Immediately he smiled, unable to stop the automatic response when he saw Crowley’s name. He glanced around briefly, worried without cause that something bad might happen if he were caught texting a friend on his own time. No one seemed aware that he was even there, much less was paying him any attention just then. So, he took another sip of tea and quickly typed back.

[Sent Thursday 9:00 am] _Think nothing of it my dear._

He bit his lip and added ‘ _I’m happy to be your pillow’._ He let it linger on the screen for the briefest of moments before shaking his head and deleting the last part. He tried again.

_I’m glad you were comfortable enou–_

Ugh, no. Delete. No, that was enough, best just send it as is. He pressed ‘send’ before he could rethink it again. He had time to pull out his notebook and drain half his tea in a series of nervous sips before his phone dinged again.

[Crowley :milky_way: Thursday 9:05 am] _Still. Let me make it up to you._

Aziraphale was suddenly quite glad for the relative anonymity of a student cafe. He knew he was smiling like a besotted fool and couldn’t stop the sudden curl of anxiety at the thought that he might be spotted. No one would care, he told himself, they wouldn’t even know who he was talking to! He tried to shove the anxiety aside to type out his response; he didn’t want Crowley to think he owned Aziraphale anything. After all, he’d just showed up, imposing on the other man’s precious free time.

[Sent Thursday 9:07 am] _Oh, there’s no need for all that!_

The bright morning sunlight lanced off Crowley’s phone screen, forcing him to squint through a headache as he sat at the till and slowly read over Aziraphale’s response. He rolled his eyes and immediately regretted it.

Sure, there was no _need._ But Crowley wanted to do it. He’d just have to be more explicit.

Crowley breathed in once, again and once more. He began counting, a fifteen count to breathe and compose and the second fifteen to take the plunge, typing an offer as quickly as he could. He actually wasn’t really nervous, not truely. It was just... well, they’d never _gone out_ for food together. They’d ordered in, sure, more times that Crowley could count (which was a lie, he knew every moment he’d spent with Aziraphale in the same way he knew the pattern of Junior’s scales or the way the eastern wall of his little shed warmed before the others.) But, until now eating together meant Aziraphale insisting on paying for dinner because Crowley was his _tutor_.

Crowley wanted– He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted but he knew that Aziraphale’s tutor was not all he wanted to be. So, in the second count of fifteen (sixteen, seventeen, fingers going as fast as they could because this was all the time in the world, eighteen...) he wrote and sent his offer.

[Sent Thursday 9:07 am] _there’s a great Thai place near your flat. My treat?_

Then, he closed his eyes and waited. At least the shop was dead this morning. He’d staggered back to his shed at nearly five AM after waking to find himself half sprawled across a sleeping Aziraphale.

He _hurt_.

Every part of him really. It was better than it should have been after the, frankly miraculous, massage Aziraphale had given him. But, it felt like each time he moved he was discovering new and exciting ways to ache. To say nothing of the way his head pounded and his vision swam if he moved too quickly.

A sudden thought occurred to him—what if Aziraphale thought he was being too forward? What if it made him so uncomfortable he ended their interactions altogether? He was already being so nice about the Napping Incident, what if an invitation to dinner was a bridge too far?

Too worried to take the time to henpeck another message, Crowley clicked the little voice-to-text button and said, “I mean, I understand if you’re busy. It’s just...” he hesitated. Why would Aziraphale want to see him? “I, ah, I’ve some new flashcards for you.”

His phone buzzed in his hand just as he clicked send but it was already too late to take the message back.

[:sheep: :books: Thursday 9:08 am] _Oh that is a temptation, isn’t it? Yes._

[Sent Thursday 9:08 am] _I mean, I understand if you’re busy. It’s just I’ve some new flashcards for you._

[:sheep: :books: Thursday 9:08 am] _Oh. Right. Yes, we should meet for that._

Aziraphale swallowed heavily and set his phone aside. His tea was nearly gone, sitting heavily in his stomach as he read back over the last few messages. Lord in Heaven but he was a fool and a half. Of course Crowley was asking about their next tutoring session. The phone buzzed again. He wanted to ignore it, to get up and get a refill and allow the shivers that coursed through him to subside, but the idea of what Crowley might be saying was too awful to delay.

He picked it up and turned the screen on before he could stop himself.

[Crowley :milky_way: Thursday 10:01 am] _When would be good for you?_

Oh. Well. That was alright then. Clearly Crowley wasn’t offended. He was still shaky, but with relief this time. Feeling as light as the breeze he could just see ruffling the tips of the grass outside, he responded.

[Sent Thursday 10:02 am] _I’m afraid I teach late the next two nights, would Saturday be alright? Say 7:30?_

Crowley actually laughed aloud at that, startling Junior who was wrapped around his wrist and forearm. The little snake raised his head, looking accusingly at Crowley.

“Sorry, bud,” he said. “I’m just-” He was relieved, though the word got stuck in his throat on it’s way up, wedging behind all the other emotions he tried to swallow back. Junior’s tongue flicked over his pulse point. “Yeah, I’m that. Blelele.” Fuck he was grateful Eve was out back with Mrs. O’Daughtery talking wedding succulents. He couldn’t believe he’d actually just said _blele_ aloud.

“Remember the circle of trust,” he told Junior. “I won’t tell the Old Lady you secretly like to nap in her apron if you don’t tell her about what just happened.”

Another tickle of tongue which he took as agreement.

“Thanks, Junior.”

[Sent Thursday 10:05 am] _aces. I’ll pick you up on campus_

He added _‘I’d pick you up anywhere’_ before laughing at himself and shaking his head as he deleted it. He was so obviously a besotted fool, there was no need to hammer it home like that.

[:sheep: :books: Thursday 10:06 am] _oh, thank you! I’ll send you the details_

The warm feeling in his chest filled him and overflowed into a confession. ‘To be clear,’ he typed slowly, carefully picking one letter after another, ‘I was asking you out.’ Shit, no. That was too much. Delete. ‘I like you a lot,’ he tried next, ‘Too much.’

No, that made it sound like he didn’t want to like Aziraphale. He did. He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted anything more in his life. Backspace. Maybe, ‘I haven’t slept that well in years’? Ugh, no, it was true, but it made him sound pathetic.

Finally, he decided to keep it casual.

[Sent Thursday 11:30 am] _Sounds good! I’ll see you then_

He added _‘angel_ ’ on the end before rethinking it and deleting. It was one thing to say it aloud when he'd been drinking, but it all felt so much more _real_ when he typed it out.

[:sheep: :books: Thursday 11:31 am] _tickety-boo._

Crowley laid his head on the counter and laughed until tears leaked from his eyes because he was so fuckin' gone on a complete and utter dork.

* * *

Saturday came swiftly. Crowley spent his days trying not to move too much, a task he suspected Eve was supporting because every time she caught him contemplating getting up to go do some weeding she seemed to have a new problem with their receipt filing system that he needed to sort out. To be fair to her, he thought as he worked his way through both a peanut butter sandwich and the Green folder, the system was a bit arcane.

When he’d first started working for her she’d used something closer to traditional filing. It had been awful, he never needed more than one repetition to learn how to care for each plant and was a fair hand with numbers, but ask him to file receipts or invoices? A disaster. They muddled through for about a year before Eve spoke to someone at one of her many charities and appeared with a color-coded system. Red for money they owed, green for sales, and blue for delivery invoices. At least at first. The colors had expanded over the years; for example, turquoise for deliveries from local growers, an ugly, muddied blue for anything further than an hour’s drive away (they’d both been on an environmental kick recently). But, it took too much time to sort things into their individual folders in situ, so he often spent the last few working days of each month working through it all and wrangling it into something resembling order.

It was not the end of the month and yet their files had never been more organized.

By Saturday afternoon he was practically vibrating with the need to get out and move. He’d spent a few hours each evening working on the Bentley and she was finally ready to drive again. So, he dressed (aiming for ‘casual cool and also gay’, but if the look Eve shot him as he left was any indication he was probably hitting somewhere closer to ‘desperately thirsty and incredibly gay for you, Aziraphale Fell’) and took his girl for a drive to burn away the last of the time before they could meet.

It occurred to him as he was pulling into the faculty car park that Aziraphale had sent him the address to the building he’d be in, but nothing past that. Oh well, he was sure he’d be able to find him. If nothing else, he chuckled to himself, he’d be able to follow the sound of nerdery.

He parked illegally in a spot reserved for one “Professor Haistwell” if the sign was to be believed. No one was around and he’d be back soon. He gave the Bentley a pat on the bonnet as he rounded the front. Aziraphale had said his building was the closest to the car park so that’s where Crowley went, wincing as his hip protested the step up onto the kerb.

The building he entered was simultaneously large, with great arching ceilings and windows that reached the entirety of the walls, and claustrophobic because every non-windowed centimeter of the walls was covered in bookshelves. Yep, this was the right place. He spotted a directory beside the elevators; A.Z. Fell (yikes, his folks really did hate him, huh?), Room 100.5. He eyed the stairs for a long minute before deciding retreat was the better part of not-falling-on-his-face and taking the elevator up one floor.

He’d had just long enough to wonder where the fuck Room 100.5 was meant to be when he spotted it. Or rather, spotted him.

Aziraphale’s office was crammed under the staircase where it turned to ascend from the first to the second floor. The rest of the lights in this area of the building were already off (it was, afterall, 7:15 on Saturday), so the only light was that which spilled in a golden shaft from the open door just in front of Crowley. Aziraphale himself was sat hunched over a desk overflowing with massive volumes and piles of papers. He had a little frown on his face as he carefully used a cotton swab to dab at something on the desk in front of him. He wore a pair of white gloves and Crowley decided then and there that he was done trying to predict what his stupid heart was going to find attractive, because he didn’t think that dork in magnifying glasses and archivist gloves was even on his bingo card and yet here he was, mentally screaming ‘bingo’ as loud as he could.

He approached the little office and leaned against the door frame, waiting for Aziraphale to notice him.

Aziraphale’s hands were entrancing to watch, he realized. His fingers were fairly short, stout in the way that everything about Aziraphale seemed to be, but they were so gentle in their movements. Carefully lifting each page in turn and brushing the soft cotton down them in regular, smooth motions. Crowley felt a blush stain his cheeks as the unbidden memory of those same hands pressing down his hips, smoothing aching muscles and tension away, filled him. Without quite meaning to, he cleared his throat.

“Oh!” Aziraphale jerked, though his hands did not wave on the fragile paper. He looked up, peering through the glasses perched on his nose. “Crowley!” He said, beaming.

He looked away, to where Crowley could now spot a tiny clock half buried under what appeared to be student homeworks.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, my dear!” Aziraphale exclaimed. He carefully gathered the pages he’d been working on up and slid them into a thick, protective folder. “I meant to meet you downstairs. Did you have any trouble finding–”

Crowley waved his concerns away. “None.” He smiled, “You look, ah–”

Aziraphale glanced down at himself and back up at Crowley, taking in his artfully casual outfit. “Oh, I look a mess, don’t I?” he said, twisting the gloves in his hands. “I meant to wear something nicer this morning. But I forgot to run by the dry cleaners and, oh I hope you won’t be embarrassed to be seen with me, my dear.”

Crowley struggled to force words out because that was just so patently insane, he wasn’t sure how he was meant to respond. Aziraphale obviously would never be the most fashionable person in any given room (save perhaps a gathering of bow tie enthusiasts) but his style fit him so well, Crowley could not imagine him looking any other way.

“You’re fine,” he finally managed to croak. He cleared his throat and held out one hand to help Aziraphale to his feet. “Er, shall we?”

Aziraphale beamed up at him, taking the hand. Crowley stepped back, pulling him up. Then, he stood there, like a ninny, holding Aziraphale’s hand.

Let go.

Come on, do it.

He didn’t want to. He wanted to keep holding that hand (it was warm, so warm, from the gloves or the bright furnace at Aziraphale’s center he didn’t know).

He forced himself through a rapid thirty count, dropping Aziraphale’s hand at twenty, and moving away, shoving his burning hand into his pocket to stop himself from rubbing his thumb across the palm. Surely a grip that intense had branded him, marked him for life?

“–of course I told them they could come by for help,” Aziraphale was saying when Crowley managed to drag his attention back to the present moment. “But, speaking with them threw my entire day off and I quite lost track of time trying to catch back up.”

Crowley hummed a response as Aziraphale scooped up his satchel and closed his office door, leaving them in the quiet, dim light of evening. There was a moment when, standing framed by the light of the lamps outside through the window, Aziraphale looked almost ethereal.

“It’s nothing really,” he finally said, realizing that Aziraphale had been waiting for him. “I’m glad you could help them.” They arrived at the elevators and Crowley realized Aziraphale hadn’t even glanced at the stairs. Great, he thought, he’s considerate, too.

“Heh.” Aziraphale leaned over and bumped his shoulder against Crowley’s, “I’m not nearly as good a tutor as _some,_ but I do alright and it was Classical Greek, I’m a deft hand with translation if I do say so myself.”

“Fuck, you’re a nerd,” Crowley told him very seriously, though he was careful to let a smile curl his mouth to take the sting from his words.

* * *

Aziraphale was, to put it lightly, completely doomed. He’d been doing alright, reminding himself through the sudden panic of realizing he’d once again lost track of time that Crowley didn’t seem frustrated by the wait. Then, oh Lord, then Crowley had helped him to his feet and Aziraphale was lost. He often felt set adrift by his anxieties, thoughts snatching at him and pulling him every which way until he could no longer see the shore for the waves around him. But, Crowley’s hand was cool and dry and his slim fingers were deceptively strong and Aziraphale had allowed himself to hold on for far too long because for the first time in a very long time he’d felt moored.

He rather liked that feeling.

Then, Crowley let go and shuffled away and Aziraphale was filling the silence with a story about a few students who’d come by earlier in the day. His mouth ran away with him even as his mind and his heart replayed the feel of Crowley’s hand in his on a never ending loop.

He thought he’d do just about anything to feel it again. He’d had a glimpse of what it was like to be a ship at dock, to have a steady anchor and berth and, after only a few seconds of it he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to live without it. He’d had a taste of that White Witch’s Turkish Delight, of being the mooring himself that kept ships safe in the harbor. They were both equally intoxicating and quieted the frenzied storms his thoughts whipped themselves into. No matter who was the ship, no matter which of them was the safe harbor, it seemed they were in the eye of the storm either way. Or at least, he hoped that was the case.

But, it was not his for the taking so he smiled at Crowley and he prattled on and, because he was weak, he leaned over and brushed his shoulder against the other man’s.

He stood a little too close in the elevator.

When they reached Crowley’s car, he reached out and lightly poked at his shoulder.

“Now, Crowley,” he scolded, though his smile never faltered, “I don’t think you’re meant to park here.” He gestured to the sign.

Crowley grinned at him, lopsided and effortlessly charming and Aziraphale’s breath stuttered in his chest because he was so damn beautiful when he smiled.

“Eh,” Crowley said, wriggling one hand dismissively, “The doc’s not here to argue and there’s no cops around to harass me.”

“Well, Professor Haistwell doesn’t drive anyway,” Aziraphale allowed.

“There you go!” Crowley clapped his hands together and his grin couldn’t possibly grow broader because his canines were showing and his brows were arched above his sunglasses and for the first time in his life Aziraphale wondered what love felt like.

Then, well, the moment did not end. That was a thing Aziraphale was discovering happened around Crowley. Moments which should fade or fall apart instead settled around them, drawing them close and holding them tight. Now, instead of the grin fading or the peace around them growing cold, Crowley opened the passenger door for Aziraphale and closed it after him and the joy around them filled the car to the brim.

The Bentley roared to life and with it Aziraphale’s pulse. He watched, transfixed as Crowley smoothly maneuvered her from the car park and onto the surface streets. Crowley sped up as soon as they were away from the campus, then he kept speeding up.

“Where the devil is that restaurant,” Crowley muttered, taking a blind corner at what felt like something approaching liftoff speeds.

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said around the lump of fear in his throat, “It might be easier to find if we slowed down enough for the signs to not blur together?”

Crowley glanced over at him. Aziraphale tried very hard not to look petrified but couldn’t manage it because Crowley wasn’t looking at the road and surely cars this old weren’t meant to go this fast?

“The road!” he choked out. Crowley barked a laugh but turned back to the front.

“Don’t worry,” he said, reaching over with his left hand and patting Aziraphale’s knee. “My girl’s in tip top shape and I’ve never crashed her.”

“With the one, notable, exception?”

A shadow passed over Crowley’s face, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “No,” he said. He did not elaborate.

Aziraphale swallowed. “I am glad to see that she’s back on her feet. Oh!” He laughed, despite his nerves, “Back on her wheels I suppose. My apologies.” He released the oh-shit bar long enough to pat the dash before returning to holding on for dear life. “Though, perhaps she would stay that way a bit longer if we didn’t try to break the sound barrier on our way to dinner, dear?”

Crowley cut his eyes over. His smile did not reach its previous extent, but his grip loosed again and he lightened his lead foot just a tad.

“We’re here anyway,” he muttered. The Bentley slid to a smooth stop in a miraculously available parking spot. Aziraphale peered out the window at the ever-so-slightly dilapidated exterior of the restaurant, simply called “Golden Thai”.

“Tastes better than it looks,” Crowley said when he opened the door for Aziraphale.

He reached out to help him to his feet again and this time it was like he was pulling the words from Aziraphale’s chest, because he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Of course, I trust you, Crowley.”

* * *

Crowley had scouted the Golden Thai a while back. As he had been on his first visit, he was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the cluttered decorations and how obviously it was a hole-in-the-wall, family-run sort of place. The iced coffee he’d ordered was also one of the best he’d ever had, so there it was. He’d added the place to the ever growing list of places to take Aziraphale to if he ever managed to gather the courage to ask him out. Even if it wasn’t _really_ a date because, well, Aziraphale didn’t know did he? But that was fine, either way Crowley was sure Aziraphale would like the genuine and well-loved kitchiness of the decor.

“C’mon, angel, you’ll like their iced tea.” Crowley grinned as he held open the door with a playful bow, and then froze at the epithet. He snuck a glance up at Aziraphale, who only looked at him in a certain sort of way Crowley might, idealistically, call twitterpated at the endearment but, realistically, was probably just appreciation for the ‘cuteness’ of the decor inside the restaurant.

“ _Iced_ tea, in this weather? In _February_?” Aziraphale asked, sounding scandalized. Crowley caught the host’s gaze and gestured for two seats before turning to roll his eyes at Aziraphale. Behind his glasses, sure, but _he_ knew and that was good enough.

“Just trust me, if you haven’t had Thai iced tea or iced coffee yet, you’re in for a treat. If you have, well then this'll be some of the best you’ve ever had.” Crowley sniffed in what he hoped was obviously artful disdain. They followed the host over to a corner booth and Crowley pleased to see the place somewhat busy, even with it being a fairly late dinner time for this neighborhood.

Crowley and Aziraphale read through their menus quickly—Crowley had gone through it online as he waited to head out to pick up Aziraphale earlier so he wouldn’t embarrass himself by having to read too slowly while out on ~~a date~~ not a date—and ordered. Crowley got himself another coffee, mouth already watering at the thought of the sweet-bitter layer of flavors, and cajoled Aziraphale into trying an iced tea (“Yes, even in this weather!”).

And then his phone rang.

He pulled it from his pocket, intending to turn off the sound and shove it away to be forgotten until _after_ his not-date with Aziraphale, before he caught sight of the caller-ID.

 _Beelzebub_.

Crowley’s stomach turned and he swallowed. Calls from the Baratrum never boded well, especially this time of night. He’d known it was coming, of course it was, but the dread crept through his veins, a terrible, icy poison that gripped his heart and lungs, stealing his breath and leaving him feeling lightheaded.

“Is that important, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked politely, fretting silently and twisting his fingers together because Crowley had seemed annoyed at the call but now his face was chalk white.

“Y– yeah, sorry, angel. ‘S alright if I take this?” Crowley wiggled the phone shakily, clearly trying to seem nonchalant. Aziraphale’s head tilted a little in curiosity, catching sight of the name on the caller-ID. Beelzebub was an interesting name. A demon, prince of hell. How very interesting to keep a contact in your phone like that. Really it was none of his business, Aziraphale wasn’t in the habit of asking prying, personal questions, and so he simply nodded his acquiescence and kept his burning curiosity himself.

Crowley stood and answered the call.

“Remember what I told you.” Beelzebub rarely bothered with a hello, just how it was. Crowley didn’t particularly want one from them anyway. It would be too close to friendship and Crowley didn’t want to touch _anyone_ with the Baratrum with a ten foot pole, let alone his friendship.

“Yeah, ‘course I know what you told me.” Crowley sighed and ran a shaky hand through his hair, mussing the careful braid he’d worked on that morning. Talking directly to Beelzebub was always _hell_ on his nerves. “They talked to you ‘bout it then, already?”

Beelzebub was silent for a moment before huffing out a disgusted noise. “ _Someone_ was talkative under sedatives.”

An electric bolt of primal fear ran down Crowley’s spine at the thought Beez might be talking about him and made his heart skip a beat from terror, but no, he’d taken the pain killers home for a reason. He didn’t let them dope him up until after he left and gave his statement. Must’ve been Hastur, the dumb fuck.

“Yeah?” Crowley frowned. “Anything that changes what I need to say?”

“No. Stick to what I told you. Dagon will be by with money to get your car repaired.” The call went dead after that and Crowley sighed, standing frozen save for a rapidly tapping foot for a count of fifteen before turning back to Aziraphale on sixteen. He sat down at twenty-nine.

“Thanks,” Crowley muttered, forcing a smile he was sure fell a bit flat, if Aziraphale’s worried face had anything to say about it.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale reached out and placed soft, delicately calloused fingertips on the back of his hand. Crowley nearly didn’t catch what he said next over the refrain of _his hand his hand on my hand his hand on my hand his hand his hand_ chanted in his head. “Is everything alright?”

Crowley breathed in deep and nodded, letting the smile flicker and fall. “Yeah, ‘s fine. Just a badly timed call. Coworker.” _Wait, no, you don’t have coworkers,_ Crowley screamed at himself internally, _that’s the easiest fucking lie to uncover you’ve ever told in your life._ “I– I mean, kinda. They’re kinda coworkers. More like acquaintances I guess? Not with the garden shop or anything, side job…”

Crowley groaned and put his head in a hand, elbow resting on the table. “I’m just going to shut up now, kay?”

Aziraphale only raised an amused eyebrow and held back his laughter. “Take your time, dear boy.”

“Just a problem that got shoved on me. I’m used to it at this point.” Crowley muttered and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. And hey, that looks like our food, right?” Sure enough a heaping plate of pad see ew and another of pad thai were on their way to their table with a bright orange iced tea and a lovely layered coffee too.

“C’mon, stir it and take a sip,” Crowley cajoled Aziraphale even as he stirred his own and basked in the sheer good-natured annoyance he was able to inspire in Aziraphale. Usually it wasn’t something he was _particularly_ proud of, being annoying, except Aziraphale couldn’t keep the smile off the corners of his lips whenever Crowley teased him and all his attention was for Crowley and Crowley alone like this. And that was more than enough for Crowley.

Probably.

He didn’t think of all the things he’d like to be able to do. Didn’t think about how he’d like to hold his hand or wrap an arm around his waist as they walked together or even kiss his shoulder in passing and not feel the need to linger because there were a hundred kisses before that and there would be innumerable more after it.

They were _friends_ , and Crowley would have to be content with that, no matter how much he wished this was a proper date.

“Oh _good lord_ , Crowley,” Aziraphale pursed his lips and Crowley couldn’t help but think he looked rather like an abbess stumbling across someone getting frisky in the pews. “I’ve had thai iced tea before, I’m not cloistered in my office all the time you know. Even graduate students have to eat.”

“Microwaving pre-packaged pad thai in the union doesn’t count.” It was perhaps a bit self-referential, but the scandalized look Aziraphale shot him was worth it. Crowley grinned back and slurped at his coffee before digging into his pad see ew with a gusto. It was possible he’d forgotten to eat more than the few crackers required to take his pain killers earlier in the day due to nerves.

Aziraphale scoffed but couldn’t help a smile as he took a sip of his iced tea and a bite of his pad thai, humming happily in approval. Crowley swallowed most of his food without bothering to taste it. Taste suddenly didn’t seem all that important, not with how Aziraphale sighed about how good the food was and drew Crowley into a conversation about the food and how he found this place. He’d gotten so involved in the conversation that by the time Aziraphale went silent and looked over his shoulder, he’d barely noticed, halfway into a passionate rant about ducks being inherently assholes, _I promise I’m right, just think about it Aziraphale_!

A polite, but firm, cough sounded from behind and Crowley looked over. His good mood fell away. He sighed heavily and waved.

“Hi Bill. Hi Suraj.” Crowley greeted the police officers, resigned to this happening now. Aziraphale’s eyes went wide, their names were nowhere on their uniform, how did Crowley know them? “What’s it this time?”

The officers looked at each other and the taller one waved back. “You probably know what, Anthony. Come on, there’s some questions we need to ask you. Now, are you gonna come with us, or are we gonna have to be rude?”

Crowley didn’t look at Aziraphale, not even a twitch in his direction, for a few long moments. “Yeah, alright. I’ll be right out, let me pay first.” And with that the two officers nodded and stepped out by the door and the car with the lights clearly displayed but not flashing.

“Sorry, An– Aziraphale.” Crowley whispered, shoulders hunched and the entirety of his form crumpled in the way mistreated dogs grew to be, hanging at the shoulders and looked ready to be kicked while he was down.

“What’s all that about– Crowley, why do they know your first name?” Aziraphale demanded, confused and worried and slowly filling up with worried fizz like a shaken soda bottle.

“‘S fine. Don’t worry about it.” Crowley muttered, “Sorry, don’t think I can get you a lift home though. Didn’t mean to leave like this…”

Crowley dropped enough notes to easily cover the meal, any sort of dessert Aziraphale might want, and a generous tip. Then, he paused for a second and pulled out a stack of somewhat messily made flash cards—the same sort of messy everything Crowley wrote out for him was—and set them gently on the table by the money. Aziraphale thought the soft sound of cards scuffing on a table was the sound of heartbreak, somehow.

Perhaps it was the fact that Crowley didn’t seem able to look at him anymore, or that all the energy he’d had when it was just the two of them in a Thai restaurant eating great food had fled, until it didn’t seem like he’d ever been capable of that sort of easy camaraderie. Like it was all just Aziraphale conjuring things up from a few friendly smiles.

And then he walked out, his gait an easy, loping thing that might have seemed confident and cool to anyone who wasn’t accustomed to him.

Aziraphale knew better.


	9. Of Pots and Kettles

“Will... you be needing a to-go box, sir?”

Aziraphale had only drunk a bit of his tea, the creamy, sweet-tart taste lingered on his tongue. He’d only rarely had milk tea before and always forgot how much he enjoyed it. The ice cubes rattled against the thick plastic of the cup and, distantly, he realized his hands were shaking. Who was that familiar with the police?

Why hadn’t Crowley argued? What had he done? Aziraphale wanted to scour the thoughts from his mind, but they wouldn’t leave him be.

“Sir?”

He wrenched his attention away from the tea, away from the terrible traitorous thoughts, dragging it across the room, determinedly continuing as it snagged on each and every knick-knack that hung from the walls. Colourful lanterns and delicately carved wood screens and framed postcards with _phohm yaak hai khoon yuu gap phohm thee nee_ written in cheap ballpoint. Finally, it landed on the waitress. She was smiling at him, her long ponytail draped over her shoulder and her brows furrowed.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Ah, yes,” he swallowed back the spit that wanted to choke him, “I’m fine. Everything is fine. What was it that you asked me? I’m afraid I was rather lost in–”

“A to-go box,” she said, her voice gentle. “We thought you might need to follow your boyfriend to the police station?” She gestured back towards the kitchen where Aziraphale could see the sole waiter and an elderly pair of women wearing matching, white chef’s jackets peering through the passthrough window. One of the chefs waved her hand, encouragingly, her face creased in a smile that mirrored the waitress’.

“He’s not my– what I mean to say is we’re not–”

The waitress reached out and scooped something up from the table.

“May I?” she asked, pointing at his hands. He looked down at them, confused.

“Yes?”

She gently moved his half-drained tea away and replaced it with a little stack of papers. Aziraphale’s throat was tight. He didn’t want to look through the flashcards. Quickly tucking them into the breast pocket of his jacket, he steeled himself. This was no time to fall apart. He couldn’t wait here for Crowley to return and there really was no reason to let all this food go to waste.

“Yes,” he said again, far more decisively this time. “If you don’t mind, a to-go box would be lovely. And the bill, please.”

The waitress glanced back towards the kitchen. The chef who’d waved shook her head, her smile never slipping an inch. The waitress chuckled, “Sorry,” she said, “Mum says no. It’s on the house.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary, my dear,” Aziraphale tried. He gathered up the bills Crowley had left behind. He’d return them to the other man, Aziraphale certainly did not mind paying for the meal, and if things went poorly with the police—well, Crowley might need the money. He pulled out his own wallet and found a fifty-pound note.

The waitress took a few steps back, “No, sir.”

“But, I really don’t ne–”

A weathered hand landed on his shoulder. He jumped.

“It’s rude to argue.” The shorter of the two chefs, the one who hadn’t waved, stood right behind him, her arms crossed across her chest, her dark brown eyes sparkling.

“No, I mean, yes, I know that, ma’am,” Aziraphale stuttered, suddenly, powerfully feeling as if he’d stepped into his mother’s parlour unprepared. Then, the woman smiled and the tension in his chest loosened slightly.

“Chariya, box up the dear boy’s food,” she directed.

“Yes, ma.” The waitress, Chariya, Aziraphale supposed, swept the plates away and made her way through the densely packed tables back towards the kitchen. When she was nearly to the door the waiter held it open for her, reaching out to tug lightly on the end of her ponytail as she passed.

“Our children,” the chef said. “They are hooligans, but they work hard.” She sounded terribly fond and Aziraphale’s chest ached. It hit him sometimes, how very rarely he’d heard that sort of tone from his own mother.

“I really would like to pay you,” Aziraphale tried after a few seconds. “The food is delicious and you deserve compensation.”

She waved her hand. “No, you can come back. Eat here again. I will charge you extra,” she laughed and it was contagious enough that Aziraphale found himself chuckling along. Then, quite before he’d properly realized what was happening, Chariya was back and pressing a bag filled to the brim with paper boxes into his hands.

“Mum put a few khanom buang in for you,” she told Aziraphale with a conspiratorial grin. He had no idea what that was, but he was sure it was as delicious as everything else had been.

“I- Oh, thank you,” he managed as he was being herded out the door, “Oh you really must let me tip you at least.”

Chariya laughed again. “Your boyfriend tipped me 200% the last time he was in,” she said, “Told me he couldn’t be bothered to do the maths.”

That was– oh, that was hopelessly endearing. Aziraphale happened to be benefiting directly from Crowley’s talent with numbers. He knew there was no ‘do the maths’ about it, those sorts of calculations came naturally and automatically to him during their tutorial sessions. His chest felt warm and his hands wanted to shake once more as he thought about what might be happening to Crowley at the police station.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale whispered. She pat his shoulder kindly.

“Just come back, yeah? We liked your boyfriend last time he was in, and you two seem really happy together, we’ll expect to see you back here with him soon.”

Then, she went back inside and he was left on the sidewalk, clutching a large paper sack to his chest.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” he told the empty street.

He received no response.

* * *

Crowley slumped across the backseat of the police car, artfully arranging his limbs for peak sullen ‘I don’t care about anything that’s happening on this totally normal Saturday’ attitude. His aching hip twinged a bit at the position, but he reminded it that a little pain was worth the mounting frustration he could see in Bill’s shoulders.

At least this time they hadn’t cuffed him. He supposed even Officer Bill Captain-of-the-Dickhead-Division Marley couldn’t justify it when he’d be oh-so cooperative. Bill _had_ given him a rough pat-down, fingers seemingly targeted at all the sore spots from the accident. He’d taken Crowley’s phone, muttering about not letting him “destroy evidence” or bring weapons into the police station. Crowley rolled his eyes but allowed it because it wasn’t like he _had_ any weapons in the first place, much less on his person. Well, he did have the gardening shears and a collection of very sharp knives for air layering. Crowley knew the drill and Officer Bill Marley was a self-righteous tosser who didn’t want to do any extra work. Bill spent the entire time making snide comments about him belonging in cuffs. He’d always rather make it look like he’d been arrested instead of an investigative detention.

With a sigh he gave up on being comfortable for the ride and let his forehead rest on the grate behind the headrest of Suraj’s seat on the passenger side and didn’t look up until the car door opened for him. Unwilling to be all that compliant with them, Crowley turned his sulky glance onto Bill, who was looking more and more annoyed at him at the second, and Suraj, who was looking a lot more exasperated but a little bit pleading as well.

Officer Suraj Nayar was a decent guy, tried a bit too hard sometimes, Crowley thought. Like right now he was playing Good Cop just a little too well and, well, Crowley didn’t really like being told what to do or think. Even if it wasn’t blatant. Suraj also wasn’t the sort who’d go against the system to do whatever nebulous Good there was. Had a hard time thinking there could be laws that weren’t meant to serve the people. Idealistic in a way Crowley tried desperately to hate, even though he was a fair bit younger than the officer.

And so, he didn’t try to stop Bill from yanking Crowley from the back of the car except to sigh pointedly and walk close behind as Bill dragged Crowley to a nearby interrogation room. Crowley, of course, didn’t get taken to the _nice_ interrogation room that looked like a conference room. Instead, he got the concrete one with the hard chair that would irritate his hip wildly and the cold metal table bolted into the ground. He was settled into the chair and had the presence of mind to scrape together a casual sneer and irreverently flicked his tongue out at Bill’s back as he left.

Suraj sighed again, took a seat across from Crowley. Crowley kept his eyes on the door, kept Suraj’s hands in his periphery, and pointedly _didn’t look_ at him in any way that might help the officer pull any sort of testimony out of him. Crowley’s breathing was even and he pulled back into himself as far as he could, letting his body take the autopilot and disconnecting in a way that was only ever helpful.

It felt like being calm, even though he wasn’t. Even though on the inside he felt like he’d shiver apart, tremble at the exact resonant frequency of the universe and fall apart at the seams. Sometimes when he got like this he had to wrap himself up in heavy blankets of shove himself underneath a couch or whatever else he could manage to trap his atoms into the shape of him so he wouldn’t unravel with a whimper.

But this felt like being calm, like he didn’t have to feel the brunt of his emotions and didn’t have to take them into consideration, didn’t have to be in charge of what left his mouth. He already knew the story, knew what was going to happen, there were hospital records for him and Hastur. There wasn’t anything they could keep him for, not for more than a day at least…

“Anthony,” Suraj began, his voice low and soothing, as if Crowley was a wild animal backed up into a corner, “We can help you. Just tell us what we’re asking and we can make sure nothing happens to you.” Who knows, maybe Crowley _was_ one, a cornered animal. Maybe that’s why he felt so very caged like this, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, save what he was told. If he played it to the letter like Beelzebub told him, then he’d be fine. Nothing would go wrong, no repercussions. It would be fine.

It would all be fine.

Crowley just shook his head minutely, more of an instinctive reaction than anything. “Of course, Officer Nayar. You know I’m nothing but helpful. Happy to make sure the cogs are turning onward in this justice machine of yours.” Usually he wasn’t so combative. Or rather, he had been, early on, when he was a lot more upset at the world and so fresh off the streets he still had the bruises from sleeping rough on his shoulders and hips. But now? Now this was all old hat, sometimes some of the guys even brought him some of their shitty coffee when they made a fresh pot and he’d been here for too long.

Bill came back in, slamming the heavy metal door and bringing his usual cloud of snarling displeasure with him. He shoved some carefully selected photos under his nose and Crowley grimaced, all the while knowing he wasn’t showing quite enough emotion to come off as ‘normal’ at the sheer amount of blood in the photos. But he looked away as soon as he could reasonably manage, and kept his eyes on the door.

They asked him the standard questions. Where were you when this happened? Where were your _buddies_ when this happened? We have a report you took your _good friend_ Reuben Hester to the hospital, doesn’t quite look like a car crash injury there, does it? Now, I got a look at your car just a few hours ago, do you have any proof it was ever in the crash? Looks mighty fine for getting T-boned so recently…

Crowley answered by rote, as he always did, just like Beez told him to. He was heading back home, he’d been out scouting a couple of new places to source paper wraps for flower arrangements for work, just ask Eve. Yeah, what of it? He took Hastur– I mean Hester to the hospital, he was in the car the whole time. Keeping him company. Just like a good friend, of course. He did all his own bodywork. Got a couple of days off work and did manual labour on the car instead. Had a friend help him, even.

Bill stopped furiously pacing at that point and stepped into his line of sight, making eye contact pointedly through his lack of sunglasses, which had been taken into holding at the front alongside his phone and wallet. Just in case they were evidence, _of course_.

“And who, exactly, was that friend, Anthony?” Bill asked faux casually. “Can they corroborate your story?”

The nerves along Crowley’s shoulders prickled, like an angry cat puffing out fur he didn’t have. “What’s it matter? Went to the hospital and they said I had classic car accident injuries, _Bill_. I filed with my insurance. He’s got nothin’ to do with this.”

“Anthony,” Suraj started, speaking up for the first time since Bill came back. “We just want to cover our bases. Come on, let us know his name and we’ll just ask politely if he can say your car was beat up at all when he saw it in the last week. That’s all.”

* * *

“You’re out late.” The officer sitting behind the grate raised an eyebrow at Crowley and, without needing to look, grabbed his bag of things that had been processed into the lockup when he arrived hours before.

“Yeah, well, Bill’s been extra tosser-y lately so…” Crowley shrugged. “Thanks, Wanda.”

“Anytime, hun.” She smiled back at him kindly. She was an older woman who used to disapprove of, well, all of him, until she’d seen him drag himself to the station at three am to report a late-night break-in at Eve’s and stayed by Eve’s side the whole time despite his obvious weariness. Probably. Crowley could never be sure with old women, even if Wanda certainly wasn’t anything nearing _old_ , they continued to baffle him.

Crowley began weaving his way through the bustle of shift-change, pocketing his things as he went, and caught the tail end of Suraj’s conversation with another officer near the front.

“They’ve tightened down their hatches, we _know_ it’s the Baratrum doing this, they’ve practically signed it at this point. But they’ve got alibis and we don’t have any evidence he’s lying.” Suraj breathed in deeply, like a reverse sigh.

“Maybe not yet.” The man next to him replied coolly. A detective, from the looks of him, Crowley thought, now that he was close enough. Crowley cleared his throat nonchalantly and fiddled with his phone in a way that very clearly signalled he was playing BubblePop and therefore couldn’t be attempting to record anything.

“Alright, ready to go? Said I’d give you a ride back to your car, right?” Suraj asked jovially like he hadn’t offered more than 20 minutes ago. Crowley just shrugged mutely and walked out the front of the station, shoving his hands in his pockets and deliberately not shivering despite the cold. This close to the heavy doors or the station that sort of involuntary motion felt too close to true weakness, no matter the way the front nipped the tips of his ears or the dipping temperatures as the clock struck half-four.

* * *

The next morning Aziraphale woke to a warm shaft of sunlight falling across his face. He groaned and rolled over, throwing his arm up to block the hateful, overbearing beam.

“Why?” he muttered into the crook of his arm, “Why the devil do you have to be up so bloody early?”

The sun, as per usual in these early morning chats, did not respond.

Aziraphale was not actually one for sleep. He didn’t enjoy it, feeling as if he were going to miss out on reading that next perfect novel or not have time to finish his grading or any number of other tasks that consumed him during his waking hours. But, some nights he toppled into bed, so exhausted by the day that he slept long and hard, completely oblivious to the world and woke long after the alarm he’d not set would have gone off. On the mornings after those nights, it was a struggle to even open his eyes, much less contemplate clawing his way out of bed and into anything approaching good order for lecturing.

Luckily, today was a Sunday and he’d actually turned in a draft of his latest dissertation chapter to Haistwell on Thursday. He was as free as any graduate student could ever claim to be for the duration of the weekend (this should, of course, be understood to mean he had about two hundred pages of assorted readings to complete, along with a homework assignment for Astronomy and revision for an upcoming examination in the same).

As he lay there, alternately glaring at the curtain he’d forgotten to close the previous night and mentally cursing last-night him for staying up so late and depriving today him of energy, the feeling of having forgotten something crept over Aziraphale. He cast his mind over his calendar, searching for the task he had been meant to do and coming up empty. Perhaps he’d forgotten to lock his office? Or maybe–

It struck him in a bolt; Crowley. The memories of the previous day, at first lovely and then awful, rocketed through him, burning away all traces of early morning confusion. He flung himself from his bed, too overwhelmed by sudden nerves to remain prone a moment longer.

He stood in his nightshirt in the middle of his bedroom, looking out at the quiet bustle of Sunday morning crowds, and suddenly, desperately wishing that he’d not been so efficient last week. He’d love a good distraction right about now.

Taking a deep, supposedly centring, breath, Aziraphale picked his mobile up from his bedside table. The bright blue notification light blinked innocently at him. Oh, perhaps Crowley had texted him!

[Gabriel Fell Sunday 1:43 am] _Mother expects that you’ll be home for Ash Wednesday Mass. I’ll pick you up at the train station on Tuesday at 10 am._

He… He would respond to that later. Right now, he cared only about finding out what was happening with Crowley. As the kettle heated, he checked through the rest of the places Crowley might reach out, even reopening tinder for the first time since they’d exchanged numbers all those weeks ago.

Nothing.

He dialled Crowley’s number, walking to the kitchen as it rang (and rang and rang and _rang_ ). He filled the kettle and set it on its base, flicking it on to boil, and dialled again.

It rang five times before clicking over to voicemail.

“This is Crowley, do whatever it is you’re trying to do with style. Actually, wait, no, this is twenty-goddamn-something or ‘nother, what the fuck are you doing _calling_ me, don’t you know how to-” _Beeeeep._

Despite the anxiety currently coiling his guts to something approximating a—When he was little and his father still around they’d gone as a family to an exhibit on lost Spanish sailing ships. It was a nice day, one of his fondest memories of the man actually, but he was perhaps five at most and by the time they were halfway through the museum he’d been flagging. So, their mother had taken Gabriel, Uriel, and Michael on through the rest of the exhibit and their father stayed behind with Aziraphale. They say in front of a display of rope, tied in a dizzying array of patterns. Aziraphale was fascinated. When his father noticed, he pulled off his shoe and took out the lace, carefully placing it in Aziraphale’s hands. Then, he’d slowly walked Aziraphale through tying ever more complicated knots, from the simple Blake’s hitch to the complex wall-and-crown. He still remembered them all.

Just now, his stomach was doing a rather good impression of a savoy knot.

He dropped three tea bags into his cup, already knowing it was going to be that sort of day, and pulled on a pair of trousers and his favourite jumper. Then, he fretted a bit, formally; pacing back and forth, wringing his hands, he even spent a few minutes giving himself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror. None of it helped alleviate the worries.

All he could see was the way Crowley’s shoulders had curled in on themselves when the officers spoke, the quiet way his voice had tried for confidence and landed on accepting.

The too-strong tea was ready and Aziraphale took it up with no further faffing about, draining half the cup before his tongue had time to register the burn.

Thus fortified, he turned to his flat. He knew he’d not be able to focus on anything that required true thought, so he’d take care of the housekeeping tasks that had fallen by the wayside these last few weeks. He took another sip of tea and got to work, dusting the shelves, fluffing the couch cushions, wiping down the wood surfaces with polish. Each task was bookended with moments of pacing worry.

He worried about why Crowley wasn’t answering, why the police wanted to talk to him, why he’d just gone with them like that. He worried about if Crowley would ever want to go ~~on another date~~ for dinner together again. He dusted the speaker of his radio and worried about why Crowley had known the officers' names, and then that thought took root, sprouting panic across his mind like so many weeds, choking out the native grasses that grew there in good times.

Eventually, when his apartment was sparkling and the sun had approached its zenith ( _look, Crowley_ , he thought, _look at me using what you’ve taught me_ ) he decided to sit down and make what inroads he could on his readings.

Except. Well. He’d used the last of his tea when making the triple-strong that morning.

Perfect.

He sighed and glanced down at his jumper. Apparently, against the usual pattern, he’d managed to stay mostly dust-free while cleaning. It looked nice enough for popping down to the shop for a box of Twinings.

The shop was empty when he entered save for the terrifying cashier who was standing in the middle of the baked good section, staring at the display of individually wrapped cake slices with a contemplative look on her face. Aziraphale took the long route around to avoid her, suddenly aware of the slight fray at the cuffs of his jumper. When he reached the tea he quickly scanned for the Twinings variety box. Spotting it, he reached out to pick it up. Except, hmm, there was always the solo box of English breakfast. It was in the combo box, but there was also a rooibos that he always left to last because it gave him heartburn. Surely it would be better to pick two boxes of the types he liked rather than the combination. Then again, if he picked up the individual boxes–

“Do you need a hex lifted?”

He jerked his hand back, heart-thudding in his chest. He had no idea how long he’d been standing there, unable to decide between the boxes.

“What?” he asked, darting a look over to see the cashier standing less than a foot away from him. “Oh, dear lord.” He took a step away. She did not appear to notice, enraptured by the boxes before them.

“A hex,” she said again, carefully enunciating, as if he was especially dim. She tapped her delicately manicured fingernail against her lower lip.

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean. I just... want tea.”

“Oh, really?” she asked. “Then why have you been standing here for the last ten minutes, staring at it like it's the puppy who moved out to the country while you were away at summer camp as a child?”

“I–,” he tried to find something to say to that, but discovered she was right. “I’m not sure what I want.”

She looked at him properly for the first time, her dark eyes narrow in concentration behind her glasses. He shifted his weight back and forth a bit.

“Cake,” she said.

He blinked. “What was that?”

“Yep,” she reached out and took his hand, pulling it from his pocket and him towards the bakery section. “At least three layers, buttercream,” she paused long enough to look him over, “Chocolate with cherries, I think.”

“Miss–”

“Oh no, none of that, it’s Anathema. Do try to pronounce it correctly, if you don’t mind.”

Through his confusion, Aziraphale managed a smile. “Mine’s Aziraphale.” There was a moment of quiet camaraderie as Anathema nodded her acknowledgement of their shared frustration with people’s inability to handle any slightly unusual name.

“Right, I suppose you will,” she said, “Come on, then. Cake.”

“Anathema, I don’t need cake.” They arrived at the cooler. She dropped his hand, picked up a box of cake (german chocolate, three layers, with cherries between each layer and a whipped buttercream), then, after another quick glance at him, a second.

“You do,” she told him imperiously. “Come on. I’d tell you it’s free, but that's a nice sweater and you have good teeth.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to ask what the devil that had to do with anything, but he’d gotten a whiff of the icing and the sweet cocoa of it triggered a thought.

Today was Crowley’s birthday.

He looked at the two slices of cake.

“You’re right,” he told her with a smile, “I do need the cake.”

She grinned at him.

Just before he left, paper bags in hand, he turned back and called over his shoulder, “It’s nice to meet you formally, Anathema.”

Anathema’s grin was blinding. “Enjoy the cake, Aziraphale.”

* * *

Crowley slumped home, parking the Bentley right in front of the store. It was technically illegal to park there, but after the day he’d had (day and night really) he didn’t much care. Didn’t have the energy to care about it. He’d hear a towtruck even from the greenhouses way before someone could get it towed away and a ticket could go fuck right off if it came down to that. He caught sight of the clock in the corner above the broken till and cursed under his breath. He should open the store… he could do it, had done it on his own before.

Digging out his wallet, he counted the notes he had left in it, turned around on his heel, and locked up the garden centre front again. He jogged down the street to the tiny corner mart that was open at this unholy hour. Four cans of energy drink and a vacuum-sealed bag of cheap espresso alongside a quickly opened container of chocolate-covered espresso beans later, he returned to the centre. Dumping his spoils onto the till desk, he discovered a note in Eve’s handwriting taped to the receipt book.

_Watch the house for me. Feed the fish. Don’t make fun of the goldfish, you hurt their feelings._

_P.S. You’re free to use the espresso machine, you irresponsible party animal._

Crowley groaned and ran a hand over his face, of bloody fucking course Eve was out. So he’d _have_ to run the store today by himself. No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine. He’d done worse, gotten by on less sleep in worse circumstances, and he had money and store-bought energy this time to make up for the fact he hadn’t gotten any rest. It was fine. He did scoff though, at the last line, like she’d ever stopped him from tromping up to her flat above the shop to steal the use of the machine. He had a feeling she kept it for him, considering she’d gone off coffee entirely almost three years ago.

And, well, it was a relief to learn she thought he’d been out too late because he’d chosen to be. Muted, hazy dread pooled in his stomach at the thought of Eve finding out he’d been taken into the police station. She would look at him like he was a delinquent still, might even kick him out if it got bad enough. The ultimatum he’d been given when they first met was clear; “the little shed at the back of the centre is yours, as well as pay and whatnot so long as you don’t bring trouble to my door.” And he intended to honour that.

Up until he couldn’t anymore.

It would always catch up with him, Crowley thought morosely, allowing himself a brief fifteen count to wallow, before shaking himself free of those thoughts. He was saving money as best he could without completely dying inside. Eve didn’t make him pay rent or utilities and paid him a fair enough wage considering. She even got him other things sometimes, like the textbooks that were worth so much more than she might know to him. So, he wouldn’t think about it. Maybe it’ll catch up, of course it’ll catch up, but for now he’d squeeze all the time he could manage out of being here, cause it was a damn sight better than the streets or the place he’d been meant to call “home.”

Crowley chugged one of the 500ml energy drinks he’d gotten, shoved an entire handful of espresso beans into his mouth, and ambled out back to his shed while chewing to take the quickest shower he’d had in a long time. Fresh out of the shower and dripping wet, he took a few moments to trace the great, black snake tattoo that wrapped over his shoulder, eyes locked on his fingertip as it moved across it in the mirror. It was well done, hadn’t ever bled or paled, and was just as clean and crisp as the day he’d gotten it. (Or rather, after it had fully healed, since it was red and swollen the day he’d finished sitting for it.) Playing the patsy for the Baratrum always made him think a bit too much, more than he should to be truthful, but the snake was a good reminder.

With another weary sigh, he dressed in a form-fitting vest top that wouldn’t be too warm for the greenhouse, even though it was certain to be freezing anywhere else in bloody Britain in early February, and his palazzo pants. It felt like wearing a comfortable skirt without any issues of stepping on the hems as he weeded or getting odd looks from customers if he worked the till in them. And if he stood still, they even looked like a skirt from a couple of angles, so if he sometimes paused in his tasks to check himself out in the glass of the greenhouse, well, no one else had to know, did they?

He needed the pick-me-up today in any case, even if it was a bit chilly. Being cold would help keep him awake anyway; if he got too warm while weeding he wasn’t unlikely to face plant right into the begonias or something else fragile-stemmed and nod off like a narcoleptic cat. So, while he didn’t much like the cold in the first place, no matter how some might call it _bracing_ , he could admit it was useful sometimes. He turned away from the mirror and paused, rubbing his hands together for a bit of friction-warmth and carefully, slowly, counting to 15. At the end of 15 pseudo-seconds, he burst through his door, booked it across the nonexistent patio, through the shop, and into the greenhouse with a shiver, finding Junior coiled amongst the early tulips right as he reached 30.

Crowley breathed in deep to resettle himself and tapped the top of Junior’s head to wake him. He opened his hand in invitation for Junior to climb up. The snake only gave him a deeply snarky look, which admittedly looked rather similar to his ‘fond’ and ‘hungry’ looks, and Crowley blew a raspberry at the lazy thing. “Too cold for you? Very rude to speak to your father like this, Junior, I’ll have you know!” He tapped Junior once more on the head and let him be.

He spent the next handful of hours weeding before jumping up and unlocking the front door to the public while cursing his inattentiveness and going back to the weeding. There was a sign on the counter to ring the large bell if someone needed service.

Over the course of the day he slammed the remaining three cans of energy drinks, averaging almost one every other hour and ate the chocolate covered espresso beans for his lunch break; which he took obscenely early in the morning as only those who started work at 4:30 am in the morning could manage. Weeding took almost twice as long as usual, Crowley kept catching himself almost nodding off even as he felt like he’d vibrate out of his skin at a speed faster than light. Only very slightly different from anxiety, but overdosing on caffeine was familiar and a choice so it felt different, less like something he couldn’t help and more like something he had control over.

In the latter half of his workday, a few people wandered in to order arrangements they’d come back for later in the week and a potted plant or two for windowsills. One, an especially nervous-looking young couple who mumbled their way through the request, even wanted to grab a business card to possibly be the florist for a wedding. That required Crowley to pull out the massive books of pictures and the rest for them to look through and he had to hide shivers while he was with the potential client. Crowley, of course, grumbled when the couple left with just a business card and thoughtful looks instead of any sort of promise about business, but that was just how things went. But, he did take the opportunity to finish the dregs of the final can of energy drink. Then, he trudged out towards the shed to grab himself a jumper, just in case he was stuck outside of the greenhouse for a long period of time again that day.

That had been a long few hours of taking terrible notes and doing his best to charm some business from the bride-to-be even while she eyed the tattoo sleeves. Luckily it seemed like she didn’t think them too much of an eyesore, predominantly plants as they were on a ‘glorified gardener.’ Though it was a sharp reminder why he was normally careful to either wear long sleeves or keep a jacket with him when there was the chance of interacting with others. Crowley rolled his eyes at the thought as he opened the door to his home, only to stop with a sharp breath.

Of course.

_Of fucking course._

“Dagon.” Crowley greeted quietly, voice solemn and eyes darting around behind his sunglasses at where she might have hidden things in his home. He prayed desperately she hadn’t hidden razor blades in the plants this time. Last time he’d had to delve into every inch of dirt in here and in the green and dry houses, nearly cutting his hands to ribbons, so Eve wouldn’t think he’d brought any of that trouble to her doorstep.

“Crowley,” Dagon sneered and stood from where she was leaning against his kitchenette, and advanced on him quickly. Crowley stood still, a rat entranced by a snake and knowing he’d never be able to avoid the strike, and for a split second he hated the entire world for how much Dagon felt like a predator in his little home.

Dagon smiled her angler fish smile; she always felt like she was two seconds away from opening her mouth to reveal rows upon rows of needle thin teeth, and the envelope she pulled from her bag and held out to him only solidified the feeling. He knew it to be filled with cash. She’d just as soon lure him in with a carrot and stick, letting him take a single nibble before she bit his throat out. Beelzebub wasn’t someone to mess with, nothing even close to that, but Dagon was zir’s right hand for a _reason_.

“Told ‘em jus’ like Beez said.” Crowley murmured as he took the money with nary a tremble in his fingers. He was good at pretending not to be afraid. Or cold. Came from almost a lifetime of practice.

Dagon nodded and smiled with teeth that only looked too sharp in Crowley’s overactive imagination.

“Your plants looked a bit droopy.” She said in a saccharine-sweet voice that trickled down his ears like poison. “Watered ‘em for ya. You’d think, as a gardener, you’d keep better care of them.” She shrugged nonchalantly and opened her mouth like she was going to say something else, but there was a loud scream as some neighbourhood kids played out in the street and her eyes narrowed dangerously. Crowley didn’t let the dejected sigh he felt in his chest leave his lips. She did this sometimes, if it wasn’t razors in the soil, it was overwatering his plants so they’d all drown. And it wasn’t something he’d be able to complain about, she was “just helping” after all. As if the Baratrum were the kind of people to care for things like plants or people in the first place.

“Keep the change, Azathoth,” Dagon muttered at him mockingly. Crowley hid his grimace until she’d shoulder-checked him on her way out of his shed, sending him stumbling into the thin wall beside the door. He hated the _stupid goddamn_ names Baratrum forced onto people, he _hated_ that they called him Azathoth and sometimes even Crawly to make fun of his name, and he hated how often they rubbed his nose in how much they hated him right back.

Rubbing his shoulder, he spun around quickly and watched as Dagon left over a side gate with surprising dexterity, not even missing a stride as she jumped it. As soon as she cleared the gate, Crowley hurried back into the shop where he could keep an eye on the Bentley, he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, and that went double for his brake lines. The bright red of a child’s coat caught his eye through the wide garden centre windows and he wheezed a worried groan.

“Hey, kids.” Crowley greeted tersely, throwing open the door and putting his back to it, hopefully hiding Dagon’s escape from the back of the centre.

Adam grinned up at him with bright, sparkling eyes that under any other circumstances Crowley would tease him for, calling them his shit-starting eyes. “Mr Crowley!” The Them semi-chorused, Brian a half-second too late to be in unison and Pepper a bit too stern to be entirely happy, but it did make him laugh. He prided himself on the fact that it was only a little hysterical as he basked in the weird normality of it all.

“Mister is my father,” Crowley ushered them inside with a wide, fake grin. He threw the envelope onto the till desk after he was sure they’d all followed him in. Then he extracted a pair of clippers from his waistband and handed them to Wensleydale. The kid was wary around anything sharp, but was also the least likely to mangle himself _or_ a plant with them for that exact reason.

“Alright you hooligans,” Crowley smiled at them, a little more genuine this time as he plucked up Junior from a nearby plant he’d crawled into, letting him crawl and wrap over his hands then slither onto Pepper’s outstretched arms. “You can each pick _one flower_. Alright? Jeremy, you got this?” Crowley asked soothingly, pleased at how the young boy’s face lit up at his remembering to call him by his first name. Apparently it was a Big Deal to Wensleydale to hear his first name once in a while, and it was no skin off his back.

The kids dispersed into the greenhouse, their happy chatter filling the space as they each searched for the perfect flower. He knew they’d return to him within ten minutes, thoroughly distracted from anyone they might have seen hopping a fence. Meanwhile, Crowley chewed on his lip and tapped at the desk, carefully counting the total of the bills in the envelope. It was a lot. More than normal. Fuck, that meant there was more to come, he’d be under extra scrutiny, would probably have to go hang out with _Hastur_ of all people to keep their cover as “friends.”

By the time the Them reconvened, he’d sunk back into that distant place where everything felt like he was watching it pass by through thick glass, distorted slightly and slow to react, but still far too aware of everything. Just like he had been at the police station.

Later, he’d realize he didn’t remember much of anything, not until he was already on his way back from the autobody shop, moving his car to somewhere safe so the paranoia of Dagon cutting his brake lines was laid to rest. He was nearly sprinting back to the garden centre when he came back into his body, miserably cold sweat pouring down his back at the run. He couldn’t remember if he locked the door to the centre or even how he’d gotten the kids to leave. He thought, looking back through what memories he did have, that they hadn’t seemed worried at least. That was good, he’d never want to worry the kids. They were sweet, if a bit overwhelming.

Crowley grumbled to himself and let his jog fall to a trot then a walk. He’d apparently run nearly all the way from the autobody shop in order to get back quickly and, even at the tail end of winter in little more than a vest top and breezy wrap-pants, it was enough to work up a sweat.

He pulled up the hem of his shirt and wiped off his face, but there was a trickle of itchy salt rapidly cooling on the back of his neck and he thought impulsively, _fuck it_. He pulled off the shirt entirely and mopped at his neck quickly before swinging it to lay over his shoulders. He’d be in the greenhouse soon enough and it had all of the heat trapped from the majority of the surprisingly sunny day still that he couldn’t _wait_ to step into.

* * *

The shop door was closed and locked and when Aziraphale peered through the glass, the lights were off. There was a little scrap of paper taped to the window with ‘Back Soon!’ written on it in a flowing hand.

“Well, then,” Aziraphale said. “I can wait for ‘soon’.” He set the bag of supplies down in the shade of the doorway and settled to sit against the frame. He’d slept heavily, but his extended anxiety over the course of the morning had sapped his energy, leaving him feeling wrung out and tired.

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

It felt like he’d only just begun to drift off when he heard sharp whistling coming from just up the street. He opened one eye, peered up the street and froze in place, mouth falling open.

Crowley was, oh dear _lord_ , Crowley was walking up the pavement on the far side of the street, lifting the lower half of his shirt to his face and wiping his face with it. Which would be bad enough. But, then, oh mercy, he pulled the shirt right off, slinging it about his shoulders and stretching his arms high above his head.

As he walked, the same rolling, tilting swagger as he’d used the previous night, the sun between the building glinted off the planes of his body, highlighting the tattoos Aziraphale had only before caught a glimpse of.

In the garage he’d spotted a wide band of deep black skirting sinuously across a sharp hip bone, now revealed to be a large snake. It coiled around Crowley’s chest, it’s head resting just above his heart and surrounded by brighter details that Aziraphale was still too far away to see and its tail looked to disappear beneath his trouser waistband. His right arm was a riot of colour, his left muted greyscale. Aziraphale’s fingers ached to trace the lines of the tattoos, to discover the little twists and turns of the art that Crowley had chosen to decorate his body, to categorize the places where bright cerulean faded to cream and freckles and then press his lips to those places and-

Then, the illusion was broken as Crowley looked up and noticed him. His steps faltered, eyes widening. He scrambled to pull his shirt back off his shoulders, trying to find the bottom and open it. He yanked it on, only managing to find a single armhole but otherwise becoming hopelessly tangled.

Aziraphale managed to quell the laughter that wanted to bubble forth. He stood and stepped forward, reaching out with trembling fingers to help, but Crowley managed to free one hand enough to hold it out, palm facing him.

“I’ve, nrgk, just gimme a mo’,” Crowley grumbled from within the confines of the vest top. Aziraphale watched him fight the shirt for another few seconds before he could take it no longer.

“Here,” he laughed, “There’s no call to struggle alone when I’m here.”

Crowley stood very still as Aziraphale carefully pulled the shirt down and into place, suddenly hyper-aware of the heat that rose from the other man’s skin. When the shirt was righted, Aziraphale stepped back, but not before his fingertips grazed the flat of Crowley’s stomach, drawing a strangled noise from the other man.

Aziraphale cleared his throat, centring himself back in the present moment, where they were standing in the middle of a public street and he was, well, ogling his tutor-slash-friend.

“Hello,” he managed something approximating a normal voice and was rewarded by a tired smile from Crowley. His cheeks were red, Aziraphale noticed, flushed from his walk and struggle. His own jumper suddenly felt too heavy for the way the sun bore down upon them, despite the season.

“Uh, hi,” Crowley returned.

A long silence, in which Aziraphale struggled to find the words for anything a normal person might say. Lovely day we're having, though it's a bit unseasonably warm. No, he would sound like a raving madman. I’m glad you’re back alright, and oh by the way, are you a criminal mastermind? I don’t mind, per se, though if that’s the case, perhaps we might discuss alternate career paths? No, no, no. First of all, he can see the red marks just barely colouring Crowley’s wrists and the parts of his torso not covered in ink were obviously still bruised—he’s not ‘alright’. Second of all, who the fuck was Aziraphale to make any judgements at all about how Crowley lived his life?

In the end, he settled on affecting the most natural expression he could manage past the questions piling up in his mind and saying, “I hope you don’t mind me swinging by. I don’t know where you live and thought you might have work today. I was, well, I was a bit worried about you if we’re being honest.”

Crowley paused, halfway through unlocking the door. “You were?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Of course!” All worries about appearing too eager or overbearing fled in the face of Crowley’s unsure tone. “I’d hoped you might text me when you returned to your flat, though I completely understand why you didn’t. It must have been terribly late!”

“Early,” Crowley muttered, “Got in around four.” Even behind the dark shades, Aziraphale can see the bags under his eyes.

“Oh, you poor dear!” Aziraphale scooped up his bag from the step and bustled forward, hurrying Crowley into the shop. “Do you need to open the shop? Will your boss be upset if you take a bit of time?”

Crowley laughed lowly, allowing himself to be pulled along. “Nah, she won’t care. It’s just the two of us, so it’s fine if it’s closed for a bit.”

“It’s a shame you had to work on your birthday,” Aziraphale shook his head, “Though I suppose a long lunch does make up for it somewhat.”

“What?” Crowley asked. “It’s not my birthday?” It was said almost absently as he crossed the space towards the little door that lead up to Eve’s flat. With her gone for the night, they could relax in her living room rather than the cramped floor of Crowley’s shed (briefly, the thought that they could relax _on_ his bed tried to surface, but he ruthlessly crushed it).

“Oh blast, I was sure you’d said February tenth.”

Cold water poured down Crowley’s spine.

“In fact,” Aziraphale went on, though Crowley was suddenly finding it much harder to follow his words, “I wrote it down in my planner and everything.”

“Nope,” Crowley said, faintly. He paused and forcibly gathered himself back into a semblance of a human, spreading a false and brittle grin across his face. “Not my birthday. Not anything at all, really.”

“Well... bother. I brought cake.”

Crowley barked a laugh. The energy drinks were still fizzling through his gut and his skin felt alternately frigid and boiling hot, the idea of adding sugar to the witch’s brew that was his body just then was genuinely terrible. But, well, Aziraphale was holding up a canvas bag and he had a hopeful look on his face and past all the bad things Crowley could still feel the burn of Aziraphale’s fingertips across his stomach.

“We can still eat cake,” he said, ruthlessly shoving the desire to hide in his bed until this fucking day ended into the darkest, deepest place he could manage.

Aziraphale lit up at his words and Crowley could almost (almost) think he was worthy of the expression.

“Come on, there’s forks upstairs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **For end notes:**
> 
> Nobody:  
> Honest to god, no one:  
> Us: Sometimes an author is two anxious disasters and the ghost who controls their hands and that's _okay_  
>  Also us: 
> 
> Long story short, we’ve finally figured out that we’re possessed by the gay ghost of a single braincell and that’s how we vibe so hard when we write. And also how we end up only writing like the day before this is supposed to be posted.


	10. Of Plots and Plants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! If you're interested in [what Crowley's Shed looks like](https://imgur.com/a/I1DkdXq), it's mentioned a bit more in this chapter, here's a link of the floorplan as well as what he has available to him in the description!
> 
> We'll be putting up a gallery eventually of all the big places, the garden center, Aziraphale's flat, etc so if there's anywhere you'd like to see, let us know in the comments!

Crowley led Aziraphale through the garden center, locking the door behind them, and back behind the counter. 

“Up through there,” Crowley gestured to the staircase revealed behind a dramatic tapestry Eve said she’d gotten a while back from some college friend or other. She’d tried to explain the joke inherent in the wall hanging replica of Gustav Klimt’s “Apple Tree” but the story had been long and complex but somehow sounded a lot like the story of her getting jumped by a snake as a kid so he hadn’t a clue what it was actually about.

He motioned for Aziraphale to head up first, “Just up the stairs. Door’s on the right, for the kitchen.” Crowley muttered and was quite pleased indeed to be a gentleman for once and hold the door, since in this case it meant he could watch Aziraphale climb the stairs and how his trousers were  _ particularly _ well-tailored at the hips.

His mouth watered at the thought of sinking his teeth into them and he had to shake the thoughts from his head.  _ Absolutely not appropriate, Crowley! _ He growled internally,  _ He’s your friend, not some piece of meat on the pavement _ . 

“Here?” Aziraphale pointed, turning to look at Crowley and, unfortunately for Crowley’s sleep-deprived mind—which had more of a tendency than normal to turn otherwise innocent situations into something a bit more  _ carnal _ —and he thought to himself that this must be the view from on his knees in front of Aziraphale. Crowley nodded, vaguely noting how a light fixture from behind Aziraphale’s head diffused through his curly hair to make him look far more angelic than what was good for his heart.

As soon as Aziraphale was through the door, though, Crowley’s heart rate crashed back to sluggishly normal and he had to catch himself on the doorway with how the cumulative sugar crash hit him. Fuck, he needed coffee. 

Crowley tiredly searched through two of the drawers for silverware and set his sunglasses on the counter in habit before passing them over to Aziraphale. The small table in the kitchen was where Eve usually ate so she could keep her dining room filled with other things, most of them were overly sentimental to be sure. 

As Aziraphale puttered over to the silverware drawer Crowley gestured vaguely at, Crowley eyed the espresso machine. 

_ Hello again, my old nemesis,  _ he thought.  _ You’ll not best me today.  _ He ground the beans and set the water in the reservoir to heating. Eve’s love of espresso was apparently the result of the brief time she’d spent in graduate school when she was around Crowley’s age and the espresso machine was nearly that old. You had to have just the right touch to get anything but black sludge. Crowley did  _ not  _ have that touch. 

Luckily, he was looking for the sludge. 

He pulled two shots, poured them into his cup with a dash to cream to preserve what little crema he’d managed to get. Then, he began preparing another puck. 

“Oh, none for me please,” Aziraphale said behind him. Crowley glanced over his shoulder. The other man was seated at the tiny kitchen table, slices of cake on chipped plates before him, his fingers interlaced atop the wood. 

“It’s uh, not for you,” Crowley told him because it was true. His head swam with exhaustion and he had the distinct sensation of clouds building all around him. He’d need to be alert to navigate the precarious waters around his own infatuation. The second pair of shots were done and he tossed them into his waiting cup. He eyed the liquid. It was the color of rich soil, mostly dark with only the faintest brush of cream. There was still a bit of room at the top. 

He prepared to pull another pair of shots. 

“Now really, dear,” Aziraphale huffs, “That’s enough caffeine to keep you awake for the next week and a half.” 

Crowley poured the final two shots into his cup and crossed to the table, downing as much of the drink as he could while walking. 

“Really!” Aziraphale said, sounding scandalized. 

Crowley licked the espresso from his upper lip and grinned, “Really. What’s the harm in a little liver damage if I’m not gonna live to fifty anyway?” 

He tilted the cup up again, draining the rest of the espresso away. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale shouted, a little less scandalized and a bit more agitated this time. “Oh, Crowley, you shouldn’t say things like that.” 

“Why not?” Crowley shrugged and sat at the table across from Aziraphale, looking at him over the rim of his sunglasses with a raised eyebrow and an air too casual about him for Aziraphale’s taste. The six shots of espresso were gone in under a minute, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but be vaguely horrified about it.

“Well, it’s– it’s just not good for you, my dear.” Aziraphale fretted, wringing his fingers for a moment before forcibly stopping himself and moving on to unconsciously worrying at his waistcoat buttons. “For one thing it floods your blood with sugar and decreases your appetite in the short term, and then you’re left with jitters and a sugar crash not long after! And for  _ another _ , long term damage from overconsumption is tremors, nervousness, anxiety, stomach upsets and insomnia. It can also hurt your heart, Crowley!”

Crowley’s jaw fell at the scolding, but he furrowed his brows and dug his metaphorical feet in. “It’s  _ fine _ , Aziraphale. Heart diseases are for people who live long enough to be  _ old _ .” He scoffed dismissively and leaned back on the chair, tilting it until it was against the wall and crossing his feet on the table. 

“It’s not fine, Crowley. You’ll regret drinking so much when you’re older.” The unspoken ‘ _ and I don’t want you to regret your right now,’ _ remained unsaid,  _ ‘not with me _ .’ Aziraphale pursed his lips and popped open the containers of the cake slices, decidedly unwilling to hear anything further on the subject.

“Azira, it’s fine.” Crowley snapped back, frowning at the stupidity of the fight. Wait, was this a fight? Were they really  _ fighting _ over this? He was  _ fine. _ “Just means I get to have my mid-life crisis sooner. Can’t tell when your mid-life is gonna be, but I figure it’s about now, so might as well have a too-flashy car to make up for my personality. Honestly, who drives a car like that except hitmen and washed up old fogeys who want to relive their glory days?”

“Now really,” Aziraphale sighed pointedly, pushing over a piece of cake and frowning at Crowley. “That’s  _ clearly _ not true.”

Crowley pulled a face in response and bobbled his head while mouthing ‘clearly not true,’ back at Aziraphale. “Why d’ya think that?” He muttered, grabbing the cake he’d been presented with and snatching a fork from the table to stab at it moodily, letting the chair drop to all fours with an ungrateful thud.

“Well, first of all, I’m not especially attracted to washed-up.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes at Crowley and gave him a look that in any other circumstance he might have thought as bordering on righteous fury, but as it stood he wasn’t sure he could take in anything other than the constant echo of “especially attracted.”

“Hn-rghk?” Crowley choked on nothing and a violent blush flared over Aziraphale’s cheeks as his eyes widened. He looked like he’d accidentally wandered into a horror show set. Properly terrified and uncertain how such a thing could have happened.

“Oh, just– I mean–” Aziraphale buried his face in his hands, elbows on the table and blush peeking out around his fingers as he moaned in mortification. “Oh bother!”

“Aziraphale?” Crowley croaked out, ignoring the way his sunglasses slipped down his face and how his eyes watered because it was still so bright, even up on the first story with the curtains drawn over the windows. “I– um, yeah?”

Crowley’s hand shook as he reached out for Aziraphale’s. He gently pried off the fingers hiding Aziraphale’s face and set them on the table, confidence growing little by little when Aziraphale didn’t pull away or scold him for being so bold and initiating touch like this or twist his face into a disgusted mask. They might have touched hands before, accidentally-unaccidental brushes of fingers as they handed things over or overly platonic shoulder bumps that devolved into laughter. Crowley liked those too, but this was on purpose. It meant something different now.

Once every finger was free of Aziraphale’s face and cradled gently in Crowley’s hands, it felt like time stopped between them. The world was just this, sitting in a kitchen with nowhere to be and nothing else requiring their attention, just each other and gentle hands entwined. 

“Ahmm,” Crowley cleared his throat and let go of Aziraphale’s hands to turn his face towards the kitchen window, knowing it did nothing to hide his own blush and cursing the capillaries in his cheeks.

“That’s, ah, not something I’m sad to hear. Yanno?” Crowley scratched at his chin and chewed nervously at his lower lip. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Aziraphale seemed to flush again but looked a little less lost, a little happier now, and heat welled up in Crowley’s chest. A comforting sensation that made him feel, maybe, a bit proud of himself for it.

Aziraphale took a bite of cake and Crowley coughed a little to clear the wretched (wonderful) emotions from his throat. He settled a grin firmly in place and gestured to the slices of cake with his empty fork. 

“Thanks for these,” he said in lieu of being able to think of anything else to say. “Sorry it was for nothing.” 

He stabbed the slice in front of him and took a large bit, chewing quickly at first and then more slowly as the rich chocolate and cherries swept over him. The sweet chocolate was a perfect counterpoint to the acidic cherries, matching the rich cream cheese frosting between each layer. He could not help the little moan that escaped. 

When he opened his eyes again, having not even realized they were closed, Aziraphale was watching him with a look that, had Crowley not known better, would border on ravenous. He swallowed the cake rapidly, the sweetness lingering on his tongue. 

“It wasn’t for nothing.” Aziraphale smiled at him through his own bite of cake. He speared a cherry from Crowley’s plate. “Though, I do have to ask, why did you say today was your birthday?” 

“Erk,” Crowley choked on the next bite of cake he’d taken. 

Aziraphale stirred his fork through the frosting on top of his slice, scooping it into little mounds and then flattening them again. 

“Obviously you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he went on, “But, you said it so confidently and, well, color me curious.” 

The left side of Aziraphale’s mouth was quirked in a small, nervous smile and Crowley’s heart thudded against his ribcage. He could deflect, he knew he could. That smile told him Aziraphale would allow it without question. But, well, his mouth tasted like chocolate and cherries and Aziraphale was smiling at him and had brought him birthday cake on the anniversary of possibly the worst day of his life. 

Crowley set his fork down with a clink. 

“I– hmm, well I–” Crowley stuttered, fumbling over his words with a tongue that felt thick and heavy in his mouth while somehow also a little like it was made of absurdly dense cotton. “It’s a date a lot of things changed. I guess.”

Aziraphale stayed silent, watching him with the same little crease between his brows that he had when working on a particularly vexing astronomy problem. 

Crowley sighed heavily and pushed the remainder of his cake over to Aziraphale, what little appetite he had fled. The sudden urge to  _ just say it _ and be done with it swept over him, brush even the vague notion of counting himself into it aside. 

“The date I got kicked out, ‘s all. ‘Bout ten years ago. Well, exactly 10 years ago I guess, heh.” He scratched at the back of his neck and looked down and away, not really wanting to see the pity on Aziraphale’s face. He realized that he’d never actually said it aloud before; Eve figured things out on her own and they weren’t really the talk-it-out types anyway and there was no one else he’d trust to know that sort of thing about him. 

The idea of Aziraphale having wiggled that far into his affections, into his heart, was disconcerting and warm and comfortable and a lot of other things he wasn’t sure how to parse just then, especially not with the espresso winding his nerves tighter and tighter. 

“Not something I really like to think about,” he muttered after a few seconds passed without Aziraphale responding, “But it’s fine! I’m better off now anyway. Probably.” Yeah, there was no way he was  _ worse  _ off than he’d been in those days, back when he was nothing more than the perfect little–

He jerked in surprise when Aziraphale’s hand laid on top of his own and reflexively looked up to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. The pity he feared wasn’t there. His breath snagged in his chest, just this side of a relieved gasp. Aziraphale didn’t look sorry for him, just understanding. 

Crowley looked away, unable to stand seeing that sort of kind look for too long. He blinked rapidly to keep the saltwater rapidly filling his eyes from leaking and making him look wildly uncool in front of the man who thought he wasn’t “attracted to washed up.”

“Hey,” Aziraphale murmured gently, rubbing the pad of his thumb across Crowley’s knuckles and then curling their hands together with a soft squeeze. 

Crowley couldn’t help but find himself transfixed by the slow rasp of Aziraphale’s thumb across his hand. He’d been in a lot of pain at the garage, more than a little drunk and aching all over, but the biggest thing that stood out in his hazy memories was the way his skin had felt set ablaze by Aziraphale’s touch. 

It didn’t feel like that now. 

Now, when he felt like he was burning at both ends, a rapid-fire comet blazing towards extinction, Aziraphale’s fingers felt like a cool balm. The muscles of his hands wanted to clench tight, to tap away and to curl into himself, but they couldn’t and he found that he didn’t want them to. He wanted Aziraphale to keep holding his hand and, perhaps if he was very lucky (luckier than he had ever been) to never stop. 

“Well,” Azira said suddenly, startling him out of his spiraling thoughts, “If it’s not something you like to think on, then dwell no more! I only caught a glimpse of the garden out back, but I’d love to see more.” He paused and looked up at Crowley through his lashes and Crowley didn’t think he’d ever be able to say ‘no’ to that look. “If you wanted to, of course.”

“Who talks like that?” he said even as he stood, “Dwell? Come  _ on _ , angel.” He hoped the smile he’d affixed to his face was enough to show he was joking. Or, trying to joke. He didn’t especially feel like joking, but he felt like lingering in this overly emotional and frank space even less. 

Aziraphale hesitated for a minute before he blinked and any traces of anything besides friendly care were wiped clean. Crowley had not yet let go of Aziraphale’s hand (the little, incredibly besotted voice deep within him screamed that Aziraphale hadn’t let go of  _ his  _ either) so he helped him to his feet. He counted to fifteen as slowly as he could, drawing comfort from the press of Aziraphale’s skin against his own, before dropping it disguising the motion as casual by using his newly freed hand to pull out his hair tie and begin working on detangling his braid. 

“Right, first stop on the tour is the Largest Goldfish in Britain!” Crowley proclaimed, leading them towards the stairs. “Right krakens they are! We can barely afford to feed them and the number of times they’ve nearly taken my bloody hand off!”

Aziraphale laughed and Crowley stared at him, because his laugh was a little raspy and how had Crowley not noticed that before now?

“You laugh, but I’m being serious. They’re great big buggers! Eve–” He cut himself off with a wince, suddenly realizing just how odd it was that he’d not told Aziraphale they had been in the flat owned (and inhabited) by his... boss? Landlady?  Mother-figure despite what either of them said? By his Eve. 

They started down the steps back to the main shop, Crowley at the front. As he pulled aside the tapestry at the bottom he had one more realization. Aziraphale had been surprisingly cool about having been lied to before, would he be so forgiving a second time? A third? The more he thought about his life the more it seemed like it was all a precarious tower of unsaid things that were really nothing more than silent lies. He’d said he was a tutor before, and yes Aziraphale had assumed first but not correcting him? Wasn’t that a lie? He’d said he was injured in an accident. Lie. Let Aziraphale believe he had a flat and was even halfway together and was anyone worth being friends with at all. 

Lie. 

He swallowed back the acid that crawled up his throat, suddenly regretting the last two espresso shots. 

Welp. Couldn’t change it now. He’d already been entirely too honest today. Told Aziraphale something he’d never even explicitly told Eve. That was more than enough honesty for, well the rest of his life if he had anything to say about it. He started to tell himself that it didn’t matter anyone, no need to be honest with the guy you’re tutoring, but then Aziraphale stepped forward and rested his hand on Crowley’s lower back as he leaned in close to say; 

“I don’t think I said before, but the shop is lovely.” Crowley fought to keep his breath flowing in literally anything approaching the normal human manner. He’d already decided that he would never again experience a waking moment without being hyper-aware of the places Aziraphale’s hand had gripped his own. 

“Th– thank you,” he managed after a few moments. He braved a look back at Aziraphale and immediately looked away again. There was– That was– 

Nope. He couldn’t handle anything that he was seeing on Aziraphale’s face. Too much caffeine, too little sleep, not enough  _ anything at all  _ to offer Aziraphale in return. 

“Behold! The Krakens. Krakeni? Krakenen!” He cried instead, stepping away and gesturing broadly. 

The fish tank was in the main shop, against the only wall without a window and protected from late afternoon sunshine by a gaudy hand-printed scarf Eve had acquired on her honeymoon. 

“You know,” Aziraphale mused as he leaned down to look for the goldfish amongst the swaying aquatic grasses, “I do believe kraken is the plural. Or rather, it should be. It’s borrowed from the Dutch verb  _ krake,  _ which ultimately came from the Proto-Indo-European  _ krokosko _ , though that last bit is still a bit debatable according to this fascinating book on diachronic linguisti–”

“Aziraphale, I’m going to have to ask you to stop right there, before I reconsider my rather high opinion of you,” Crowley drawled. 

Aziraphale blinked at him. “Oh,” he said slowly, “Are you, ah, not a fan of...” He trailed off, looking so like a snake denied his allotment of snails that Crowley relented. 

“Watched a special about some numpties trying to figure out the first language or some shit? Said they were that thing, diachronics?” 

Aziraphale laughed outright, “Oh Heavens no! Proto-world? I would  _ never!”  _

Crowley had no idea what that meant, but the sparkle in Aziraphale’s eyes was worth having struck out into the unknown with his jab. He resolved then and there to start recording every possible show he could on the history channel. He’d only seen the one about languages because he got the time wrong on the one about nebulas he’d been trying for and been too sore to get up and turn it off (and, he found the scholar’s frenetic defense of the clearly indefensible entertaining). 

“Proto-World!” Aziraphale chuckled, “You think so lowly of me. I’ll clearly have to work to put myself back in your good graces.” 

“You’re always in them,” Crowley muttered and Aziraphale beamed at him. 

There was a flash of gold from the tank, drawing Aziraphale’s attention away. Crowley watched as he pressed himself close to the glass, peering in at the two goldfish who emerged from the greenery. 

“The one with the spot on his head is Cheeto, the other is Finnwick.” 

He caught the reflection of Aziraphale’s smile in the glass. “They’re lovely,” Aziraphale said slowly. “Only–”

“Yes?” 

“Well, are you quite sure they’re the largest? I think the big one is smaller than my hand still.” 

Crowley shrugged. “No clue, does anyone measure pet fish? I just like to tell them that so they’ll maybe eat a bit less and stop growing all the damn time. Tanks big enough as it is. Do you know how hard this thing was to get in here?” 

“You dragged it in here filled with water?” Aziraphale smiled coyly and raised an eyebrow at Crowley. 

“I– what– No, I mean–” Crowley was sure this was a trap. There was  _ no way _ anyone could be innocent with  _ those _ sparkles in their eyes, and he quickly pursed his lips in mock frustration and hummed aggressively at Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale barely kept the mirth contained behind his teeth and absolutely failed at keeping the smile from his face. “I can imagine it was difficult with the narrow doorways, though I’ve no doubt you did it with grace. Hard to imagine you doing much of anything without grace. You’ve got the body of a dancer.” 

Crowley straightened up in surprise at Aziraphale’s sudden forwardness, this and the hand on his back, the crowding into his personal space… He liked it, quite a bit actually. So he hid a sudden and annoying flush at the compliment as he checked the automatic feeder and topped it up, looked in on the filter so there wasn’t any backup in there to keep an eye on or algae that needed cleaning out later, and quickly crossed over to the fridge to pull out a couple of leaves of lettuce and attach them to the magnetic clip underneath the feeder. 

Aziraphale cleared his throat and, when Crowley looked over, his face was angled away towards the counter where Crowley had left his astronomy textbooks spread out the previous day. “If you– I mean if I made you uncomfortable with that—commenting on your looks—I’m very sorr–”

“No!” Crowley cut him off, half-shouting, and flailing to screw up all the courage he had in his skinny heart shot through with adrenaline at the rush of  _ No, not at all! That’s not it! _ He reached out and grabbed Aziraphale’s hand, almost the same way Aziraphale had taken his before, except this time there was no table to keep him from curling his fingers around Aziraphale’s. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale blinked up at him. 

“Sorry.” Crowley was intimately familiar with the ache of regret. He’d overreacted, overcompensated, he never should have– He’d just let Aziraphale’s hand go. That’s what he had to do. He’d counted to get it done upstairs. He could do that again now. 

Right. 

Just, a fifteen and then drop it. 

He’d barely made it to  _ three  _ when Aziraphale spoke, his voice slow and cautious. 

“I’d... not mind,” he drew each word out, like he was searching a dictionary each time, hunting for the perfect choice, “If you wanted to hold it. My hand, that is.” 

“Wot?”

“Well, it feels, ah, nice?” Aziraphale rubbed his free hand across the back of his neck. “Only if you want to, of course.” 

Crowley was quite beyond the ability to speak so he bobbed his head in a frantic  _ ‘Yes, oh fuck, yes, please keep holding my hand because I think I might die right here and now if you stop’ _ . Or at least, that’s what ran through his head, he was sure what he conveyed was something closer to  _ ‘You pretty, me dumb, hands? Gay _ .’ 

Which did cut to the heart of the matter, so he was alright with that. 

“So, is that the extent of it?” Aziraphale asked after a moment.

Crowley tried to gather the scattered threads of his composure. He cleared his throat. “What?” 

“The tour,” Aziraphale gestured to the shop around them with their clasped hands, “Is that all of it?” 

“Oh! Oh, no. Come on!” Crowley was suddenly excited. He was sure he’d pay for it later when he couldn’t sleep and his entire being ached mercilessly, but right now he felt as if he could tap dance to Mars. 

“This is the shop, er, obviously. Till, counter, ignore the books if you please, good man. Ah, the seeds are there, the delinquents there, and the pots and boring stuff in the corner.” 

“Delinquents?” Aziraphale’s voice changed when he smiled, Crowley thought, warmed, it smoothed into something closer to sunlight across daffodils than it was to stars on ivy and  _ oh _ , he was in such trouble. 

“Yeah.” Crowley pulled him across to the little shelf marked ‘Failures. Buy at Own Risk. No Returns.’ “These idiots can’t manage to grow right.” 

“Now, my dear,” Aziraphale said, and the new context around the word when their palms were pressed together sent an electric jolt through Crowley’s nervous system. “Surely they grow better if you’re nice to them?” 

“These? Psshh.” Crowley poked at one of the offending  _ schlumbergera,  _ “I mean look at this color? Pathetic. It’ll go to some admin’s desk where it’ll be overwatered and die in a few weeks. It knew the consequences.” 

“Now, really, I’m not sure that’s how it works.” 

Crowley shrugged, “It is here. Come on, the good ones are out here.” 

* * *

Crowley was not wrong, the good ones were through the narrow door at the back of the main shop. As soon as they stepped out of the dimly lit interior, Aziraphale was assaulted with a riot of light and color. The sun had just begun to dip towards the horizon, casting everything in a vibrant gold, lighting the greens and reds and ochre yellows from within and glinting off the pair of glass greenhouses that angled away from each other. Where they met, in the middle of the entire space, was a gnarled pear tree, just showing the first signs of new growth after the winter. 

“It’s, oh Crowley, it’s beautiful!” He exclaimed. 

“Yeah,” Crowley shrugged, “It’s home, I guess.” There was a bit of an odd note to his voice, something Aziraphale might have called ‘wistful’ from anyone else, but when he pulled his eyes away from the delicate interplay of light and life, Crowley was looking at him with a smile, so he reasoned it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. 

“Why two greenhouses?” 

Crowley lit up when talking about plants in the same way he did when talking about stars, Aziraphale soon discovered. He led them first through what he called the hothouse, which was the greenhouse on the left. It was filled with cacti and succulents and rosemary and all manner of plants which preferred arid environments. The air stung his nose a bit and smelled of fresh herbs and dust. 

“This one’s my favorite,” Crowley told him when they reached the center of the space, “Eve got me the seeds on her last trip to the States, five years ago now? Somewhere around there.” 

Aziraphale knelt to inspect the cactus, which was perhaps the height of his palm, if he was being generous and shaped like a narrow cylinder with a curved dome top. 

“It’s very... Small?” He wasn’t sure what else to say because it seemed that every other plant in the space was more impressive than this little thing. 

Crowley laughed. “It’s called a saguaro, they can live to be 200 years old and grow to 12 metres.” He stretched his free hand high above his head as he spoke, eyes wide, inviting Aziraphale to marvel at the plant with him. “She’s not much to look at now, but that’s five years of growth and she’s doing so well. She’ll still be here long after I’m gone,” he paused and laughed quietly, “Well, s’long as no one tears the greenhouse down and the heating bill keeps getting paid in winter.” 

Aziraphale had the sudden, mad, thought to look into the Fell Family Trust and see about setting up a fund for ‘the preservation of one of the rarest cacti in England’. He’d endure whatever needling Gabriel wanted to throw his way if it meant Crowley felt this sort of joy. 

“She’s beautiful,” Aziraphale told him. “I can’t wait to see how she grows.” He realized he meant it. 

He had no intention of  _ not  _ being in Crowley’s life. Ever. 

Oh dear. 

That was, well, that was a thing, now wasn’t it?

He stood and swallowed a few times, feeling parched and off-kilter from the dry air. London wasn’t meant to be this arid. That was it. Nothing else drying his mouth, stealing his thoughts away to hotter climes. 

“And the other greenhouse?” he asked, voice rather more high pitched than normal. 

“That one’s more traditional,” Crowley explained as they moved through the narrow aisles towards the door. “Oh watch the prickly pear there, he keeps growing across the path.” Aziraphale carefully stepped over the large, flat leaves (pears? Fronds? He would need to read up on cacti as soon as he was able). 

The door from the hothouse opened back into the triangular space with the pear tree, they crossed behind and Crowley opened the door to the other greenhouse. Instantly a wave of warm, humid air rolled out. 

Inside were the more standard collection of flowering plants and herbs, all obviously expertly cared for and verdant. 

“They’re lovely,” Aziraphale complimented Crowley, “You clearly know what you’re doing.” He glanced at their hands, still clasped between them and then up at Crowley’s face. “Though, I do think I prefer the hothouse.” 

Crowley made an unclassifiable noise, causing Aziraphale to turn away to hide his smile, lest he be seen as making fun. 

“Yes, well,” Crowley said after a few moments. “It is more unique. No mint in there.” He glared at a large collection of mints just to their left. “Hate mint.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I cook us dinner,” Aziraphale told him. 

“Next time?” 

“Oh,” he chuckled, “Silly me. I’d have to have cooked for us a first time for that, wouldn’t I?” 

They started moving towards the door on the opposite end of the building. There were no sharp thorns to avoid in this greenhouse, but the rapidly fading light and the abundance of trailing vines kept Aziraphale on his toes. 

When they reached the far end Crowley paused. “S’cold out there now,” he said, “Nothing much left to see anyway. That one has some orchids I’ve been working with.” He pointed to a small shed nestled against the back fence. 

“And that one?” Aziraphale asked, indicating a small shed across the way from the one housing the orchids, the space in-between filled with all sorts of trees in large pots, some of which looked big enough to fruit if they were the type. With the last of the dying light, he could see a veritable jungle of large-leafed plants in dark greens through the large window in the side. 

“Hm?” Crowley leaned around him to look and frowned a bit. “Oh. There’s nothing in there worth looking at.” He cleared his throat, “Come on, there’s always a few slugs in the orchids and Junior’ll be hungry soon.” 

“Slugs?” Aziraphale grimaced and then furrowed his brows in confusion, “Junior? You have a child?” 

Crowley grinned back,  _ shit-eating _ was what Doctor Haistwell would have called it. “Yeah, little monster too. Likes to hide out in the plants and scare visitors, so keep an eye out, but he likes slugs and snails so if we grab a couple we’ll be down some pests and Junior will be happy.” Crowley shrugged, letting go of Aziraphale’s hand and sauntering over to a little plastic travel terrarium stashed in the corner of the greenhouse. When Aziraphale peeked inside, it appeared to already contain a few slugs that looked rather, well, sluggish to his eyes. 

“Looks like we’re in luck! We’ve got some left.” Crowley spun around with a slug in his hand. The hand he had been holding not too long ago, and Aziraphale could feel his face go a little green. “You want to feed him?” 

“ _ Feed _ him?” Aziraphale squeaked at the thought, what kind of little boy ate  _ slugs _ . A wild one, he supposed, but  _ surely _ that couldn’t be good for them?

“Now we just have to find him.” Crowley smiled kindly, and pulled the slug away from Aziraphale, much to his relief. He could feel his face returning to a normal color. He hadn’t remembered seeing a child around, but Crowley seemed intent on searching a few small cracks and crevices and between planters, as well as the bases of a few of the larger leafy bits around. 

There was a loop on repeat in Aziraphale’s head of  _ ‘He’s got a son. A small boy, who’s extraordinarily small. Or good at hiding. Who likes slugs. Oh buck up, Aziraphale, it’s just a boy. A son? He never mentioned a son. Or maybe I hadn’t heard it? Junior? Crowley Junior? Not a bad name. What if he doesn’t like me because I don’t like slugs?’ _ and, regrettably, that meant he couldn’t pay much attention to the man in front of him bending and crouching in loose, flowing trousers that split up the sides of his legs as he searched high and low for an alarmingly tiny child.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale yelped and froze still, his voice a tight whisper-yell, as if afraid to disturb the creature currently climbing up Crowley’s leg. A great, big bugger, thank  _ you _ . “Crowley, don’t move. There’s a  _ snake _ up your trousers, stay very, very stil. I’ll call the pol– er, someone!”

“Oh?” Crowley, of course, did exactly the opposite and pivoted on his heel without a care in the world and grinned as he lifted his leg into the air and grabbed the snake around the middle, pulling it off his leg. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale half-shouted under his breath, stern and worried. That was  _ not _ how you were supposed to pick up a snake. He wasn’t sure you were meant to pick them up at  _ all,  _ but if you had to, well, he’d seen the bloody nature programs and that was not right. 

“You found Junior! Thanks, angel.” Crowley brought up the two-foot slithering creature up to his neck and casually let it wrap around him. Aziraphale, of course, was far too sensible to let a snake wrap around his neck that he  _ breathed through _ , thank you very much. 

“That’s– that’s Junior, is it?” Aziraphale stepped closer, all the while pointing timidly at the snake.

“Yep! Found him when he was real tiny, while ago actually. He’s probably about as old as I’ve, uh– as I’ve been here I guess.” Crowley’s excitement petered out into something sheepish and almost shameful and, even though he still had a slug in one hand and a snake on his neck, Aziraphale couldn’t help but draw closer and take Crowley’s free hand once more in his own.

Now that they established that this was alright, that hand-holding was an acceptable pass-time, that Aziraphale could  _ touch the untouchable _ and it seemed to be a reciprocated desire, well he wasn’t sure he’d ever get his fill of it. 

_ Woe be to Crowley, _ Aziraphale thought to himself, bemused,  _ I’ll never let go if he doesn’t make me. _ And that soft, wistful thought that originated in that soft place right underneath his heart warmed and puffed up like a pleased bird ready to nest in comfort, said that Crowley might not make him if, perhaps, he was reading his reactions right.

_ “Hope” is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul,/And sings the tune without the words/And never stops at all… _ Aziraphale mused to himself as that feathered thing fluttered in his chest underneath his ribcage, as Crowley smiled down at him and the very last rays of the sun shone just right to light up his eyes, even through the glasses. And even with a slug and a snake in the picture, standing in a garden, that moment felt perfect. 

* * *

Dagon and the rest of the Baratrum, or at least those involved in the “upper echelon” that were there before  _ the Baratrum _ even existed as more than a school gang, slogged their way across a university campus. They passed the Athenaeum and continued on into a cozy office that belied what lay within.

She swallowed her breath until it settled and pulled her shoulders back and head high, even if she kept her eyes diverted. Hastur and Ligur were here because they didn’t have anywhere to go, that and they had really grown into themselves as the types who honestly enjoyed kicking others when they were down. Real demons of men, Dagon would say, and they’d puff their chests in some sort of pride at it, as if it were a compliment.

That’s what Dagon did, after all. Said cruel things, did crueler things yet, and played it off as if she had meant them that way. As if she was raring at the bit just as much as any of them to do as she was told and cause some truly terrible chaos. Mischief of the Nth degree just like the dictionary said, “harm or trouble caused by someone or something.” She really had to hand it to ‘em though, The Boss was good with words. Knew the real meanings of things and used them so people thought one thing even when he was saying something else, and everyone but him thought they were on the same page. 

So Dagon started carrying around a dictionary. A pocket thing that was old and pretty rubbish, the internet was better most days, but she started to make notations in the one in her pocket. Fiddled with the edges of the paper until the pages were too soft to give her papercuts on the pads of her fingers anymore, no matter how much she worried at them. 

Beelzebub entered the office first, like always. Ze is the smartest of them, found the Boss in the first place after all, didn’t ze? Beelzebub was ruthless too, with calculating eyes that Dagon watched turn from fond and sometimes mean to devastatingly cold and sharp. Whatever Dagon had in her that kept Beez around at the beginning, doesn’t seem to be there anymore; or maybe it’s Beelzebub who’d lost it. Lost the name Dagon used to call zir when they were young and stupid and it was just the two of them. Everything else, too. 

But Dagon was firmly entrenched in this life now—whether she wanted it or not she was privy to all of it. To all the dirty deals they were sent on, to every embezzlement she helped with, for every ill-gotten gain they brought back and she marked down in their ledgers and files, as if they were a real company that needed to keep track of these things for something so mundane as an  _ audit _ . But she kept them, faithfully and  _ perfect _ because if there  _ was _ an audit, it was far more than a job at stake if the Boss didn’t like what the files said, if there was anything missing there. 

The thing was, Dagon wasn’t born Dagon, she pulled it from a book, Lovecraft or something else just as bullshit, and fancied herself some great thing from the deep. She wasn’t born Dagon, but she’d sure as hell die Dagon. Of that much she was certain.

Per habit, Dagon looked around the office as she shuffled in, right behind Beelzebub but before Hastur and Ligur. The office was warm and welcoming, smelled a little bit like baked bread and something cinnamon-y sweet with cedar underneath it all, just like it always did. There were cups of already-drunk beverages scattered around—the life of a professor or undergrad, per the internet, from what Dagon could tell—and the walls were covered with bookshelves containing painfully mundane knick-knacks and innumerable books. 

Dagon  _ hated _ this office. It felt like all the iron bars that kept her caged and stuck here. She simultaneously despised and envied Azathoth for the fact he seemed insignificant to their Boss most days. He didn’t have to show up to these meetings, wasn’t watched seemingly at all times, didn’t have to watch his step or his back like she did. She was tempted to call him a coward for it, but instead she settled for Azathoth, just like always. It was easier that way, to call him the Blind Idiot rather than _ Crow-ley _ when she already felt so much like a trapped bird.

“Beelzebub.” Boss greeted, nodding at the rest of them. Presumably. Dagon used to watch, but she couldn’t bring herself to these days. Her head was high, her shoulders back, she was fierce and nonchalant as always, except she didn’t look Boss in the eyes, hated when she caught sight of him. 

“Boss.” Beelzebub greets, “Got anything on the docket for us? Seemed like you had something important that might have come up.” Right, the emails. Dagon was usually the one who answered them, even if they were addressed to Beez, but she told zir about them, especially when they were from Boss.

“I do, in fact,” Dagon hated their public schoolboy accent, something Etonian and unsettlingly familiar, it was calming and soporific like walking into an Opium den. Probably. Seemed like it would fit though, considering they carted around opiates, among other things, just fine.

“Everything’s in that envelope. All the rest you might need to know is in an email.” Boss paused and Dagon resolutely didn’t let her face twist into a grimace like she wanted it to at that. Great, more plans via email, then why the  _ fuck _ did they have to come all the way out here then, to a university on a bloody Sunday? No one around, ‘cept a pack of bloody fools for any stray eye to see. 

“And Dagon,” Boss said casually, like she didn’t hate them with everything coiled up in her guts, with every fiber of her being. “I need some  _ good _ tea, none of the Tesco label. If I’m remembering correctly, your father has such a lovely brand. Why don't you go get me what he has.”

Dagon’s eyes shot up to meet his and her soul  _ burned _ with how much she hated them. No matter how good he was at pulling that kind professor look around him like a cloak, no matter how many of his students loved them. She knew who he  _ really _ was beneath all that, and despised them. 

“And remember, kids do have such silly accidents, so I'd worry if you took too long to find it for me, Sarah.” Just another nail in her coffin, another lock on her cage. 

Dagon grunted with her teeth bared in a rigor mortis smile as she caught a small clip of cash thrown at her. She hadn’t spoken to her family in years, let alone remembered what her father’s top-shelf tea for guests was supposed to be, but she didn’t have a doubt in her mind he knew the bloody, fucking brand even and would cause one of those  _ accidents _ to the one last person she still cared about. 

Fucking bastard.

“Yessir,” Dagon, The Terror of the Deep, whispered, and she hated herself that much more for it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, we'll be putting up a gallery eventually of all the big places, the garden center, Aziraphale's flat, etc so if there's anywhere you'd like to see, let us know in the comments! 
> 
> And check out the beginning notes for a link to the full description of what's in the Shed.


	11. Of True Names

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to [Lur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurlur/pseuds/Lurlur) for the britpicking. <3 <3 
> 
> there's a link to a calendar if you're having trouble with dates or timeline (definitely NOT made bc the authors needed multiple hours to keep their own dang timeline straight! Nope!!)

Time, Aziraphale had learned over the last few weeks, was not an especially solid thing. Oh, he’d been aware for many years that _time,_ as humans thought about it, was a construct. He’d spent a great deal of his later secondary school days absorbed in philosophical debates about the nature of perception and how massive social contracts that people were not even aware they’d agreed to could alter one’s perception of the world around them. In the mornings, when he lay in bed and stared at the clock and wished for even a few more spare seconds of rest, he cursed whichever of his ancestors had metaphorically signed their name to the concept of demarcating time at all. 

That wasn’t the sort of thing he was learning now. He was learning just how wishy-washy time could be, all the new and intricate ways it teased the senses and left him lurching in a ditch while he reeled and gasped as it dilated around him. Suddenly, days and weeks and even hours seemed to fluctuate wildly between interminably long and blink-and-you-miss-it rapid while sitting at the counter in the Garden Center, working his way through his homework as Crowley alternately helped him and harassed the more recalcitrant plants in his care (and sometimes even rung up a customer). 

The current unit in astronomy had delved into the fabric of spacetime, where he learned all about how time could be properly fucked in actuality instead of just when he daydreamed about hand-holding, explaining that gravity and time were interwoven, as the effect that gravity had on an object increased, the way that time passed for that object slowed. It was the cornerstone of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Professor Avgerinós had given a very complicated example of twins one of whom was launched into space while the other stayed home, but Aziraphale hadn’t really understood. 

Understanding came when he looked up from his assignment to realize that two weeks had passed since the first time he visited the garden center. Two weeks since they’d eaten dinner together and Crowley had been taken in by the police and Aziraphale had worried himself into an anxiety-purchase of not-birthday cake. 

Two weeks since they’d spent an entire evening holding hands and talking about plants and movies Crowley liked and books Aziraphale did and how wonderful it was that there wasn’t much crossover there because Aziraphale was excited to share and be shared with. 

Two weeks and now he understood how time could be so fluid because he was simultaneously sure that he’d only just blinked and met Crowley yesterday and that he’d known the other man his entire life. The end of the term was rapidly approaching and Aziraphale found himself _eager_ for its end for the first time in years. 

“Ew,” Crowley said, appearing in his periphery. He wore the loose trousers Aziraphale had come to expect when they were at the garden center and a short-sleeved t-shirt that did nothing at all to draw attention away from the cut of his slim shoulders or the way the tendrils that escaped his braid clung to the sweat on his neck. He grinned and swiped his hand through his hair. “Ugh, are you making a look that soppy at a book?” Crowley teased. “Hopeless, you are.” He leaned over to look at the book in front of Aziraphale. The page he had open depicted a smooth planet-like sphere nestled in a warped mesh of gravity. 

“Still can’t believe your fuckin' professor has you learning this stuff in intro,” Crowley complained. “How’s it supposed to help you at all?” 

Ah, the crux of Aziraphale’s current problems. Well, current _academic_ problems. The Mass with his family loomed ever closer. Which was another problem entirely that he wasn’t much happy to think about either. The first one, at least, was something he was actively working on, Mass, on the other hand, wasn’t something he could _do_ anything about.

“It’s not,” he said, wearily closing the text. He’d done enough to call it a day. “Or at least it’s not going to help me specifically. I have to know it to pass the class so the professor will sign off on my funding coming in-part through the astronomy department.”

“And you need that.” 

It wasn’t a question but Aziraphale nodded anyway. “Yes.” 

Crowley sighed and scratched at the back of his head before flopping into the seat next to Aziraphale, pressed tight to him from shoulder to hip, making Aziraphale flush happily at the closeness, even as Crowley began to explain it all. Again. And without thinking about it (or without stressing or fretting over it for at least five minutes which meant nearly the same thing as not thinking about it at all to Aziraphale) he reached for Crowley’s free hand and entwined their fingers. The stutter in Crowley’s explanation matched the stutter in Aziraphale’s heartbeat, so he figured they were even.

Aziraphale realized this was probably a poor move on his part, because he wasn’t taking in _any_ of the lesson other than how good the calloused thumb on the back of his hand felt. He was pretty sure that wasn’t what he was supposed to pay attention to, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

“So, since we’ve decided to believe Einstein and say the speed of light is the same in both cases, it has to be _time_ that’s slowed down in the... second... one,” Crowley trailed off and looked at Aziraphale with a fond smile, “And you caught none of that, huh?” He nudged Aziraphale’s shoulder with his own and squeezed his hand, pulling a startled _hmm?_ from Aziraphale, who had the good grace to at least look sheepish about not listening. He was just gathering the scattered threads of thought from where Crowley’s fingers had thrown them when Crowley stood suddenly, his hand pulling against Aziraphale’s. 

“How about dinner?” Crowley blurted, looking surprised at himself for it for a half-second before he half-recoiled away. Aziraphale gripped his hand and squeezed back, freezing his retreat. He extended his arm to pull up his shirtsleeve and check his watch before nodding.

“It’s about that time, isn’t it? Well, for you,” Aziraphale nodded and turned his pleased smile to Crowley, “But I could do with an early dinner today.”

In another bout of impulsivity bolstered by the feel of his fingertips on the back of Crowley’s hand, Aziraphale leaned forward and looked up at Crowley from beneath his eyelashes, distantly both thrilled at his own boldness and shocked at himself for it. “As a date?” 

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he stammered out half-words and noises that might have meant to be words but hadn’t quite made it all the way there as a blush rose up his chest to his neck and then his ears. The t-shirt made it quite easy to see just where the blush came from and Aziraphale was struck with the desire to see how far it went before he tuned back into Crowley once more.

“Ye– I mean, uhm, s– sure, definitely. A date, that is.” Crowley winced and Aziraphale huffed a small laugh beneath his breath–it was obvious Crowley had physically bitten his tongue to stop himself from rambling on.

“I just thought–” Aziraphale looked away, suddenly feeling a bit shaky around his knees, his thoughts stopping dead before lurching and racing ahead again at how forward he’d been. “I mean, I had been thinking, not that there’s anything _wrong_ with coffee, or tea really, or Monmouth’s, but we went there before too and—you know not that there is a _before_ just yet, I suppose—but I was wondering if maybe just coffee was too friendly. But, well, we’re not _friends_ , are we? I mean, that’s fine if you only want hand-holding as friends, and all that, just some friendly young gentlemen and such, if you want. That’s fine, but I think _I’d_ like if–”

“Aziraphale!” Crowley said firmly, his tone stern, just shy of a shout really and not one that allowed space for argument, which jolted Aziraphale from his thoughts and back into reality.

“Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry, I’ll just– sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale stammered and looked down, afraid to meet the eyes of the boy he liked so very much, even through his dark sunglasses. 

“No, no, it’s alright, an– Aziraphale, s’fine.” Crowley’s voice was softer now, soothing, like one might talk to a frightened housecat during a thunderstorm or a trip to the vet. “Just didn’t want you worrying.”

Their hands squeezed each other’s in tandem and it felt a little like unspoken fate, maybe, that they would move in such ready concert. _A_ _red string tied on our fingers_ , Aziraphale thought dimly, even as his fingers trembled in Crowley’s gentle, welcoming grip. 

“A date’s fine, Aziraphale.” Crowley murmured, “I’d like it to be a date too.”

* * *

The library was always quiet this time of year, filled with only the frantic shuffle of feet as students trekked back and forth from the stacks to the seats they had claimed and the rustle of pages turning. Most would probably find the environment stress-inducing, but Aziraphale had always thrived at the end of terms. Work the rest of the semester was slowed by second-guessing himself and rewriting (and rewriting) each line, but here at the end? When everything was due and you just had to turn it in or accept your failure? Aziraphale found that all his questions and worries and the desperate need to do and redo and redo faded away. 

He didn’t often work in the library these days, much preferring his own office where he had copies of all his favorite reference books. But, he’d ventured away from that sanctuary in order to pick up a book Doctor Haistwell had put on hold for him and had now queued up at the end of a long row of undergraduates to wait his turn to checkout. Talking was permitted here so he amused himself by listening in on the other students’ conversations. 

“Yes mum,” the tired-looking girl in an argyle jumper in front of him sighed, “I’ll be done with classes by then. Yes. Yes, mum. Just like every other year. Like in the calendar I sent you.” He tilted his head so she couldn’t see his smile. “I’m not being smart with you, mum.”

His smile faded. He’d never had that sort of conversation with his mother. That would require her to be around for any length of time or actually calling him herself. 

He immediately chastised himself for the uncharitable thought. His mother had done her best and never been cruel to him. He’d felt a creeping sense of shame about his plans to skip the Ash Wednesday Mass Gabriel had invited him to ever since learning that Crowley’s family had kicked him out. Who was Aziraphale to refuse his family’s desire to spend time with him when other people didn’t have even a hope of that?

(He carefully ignored the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that rose when he thought about spending any length of time in his childhood home. He liked being seen, liked taking up space, and he faded to little more than a ghost there. )

The girl in front of him rolled her eyes and bid her mother a grudging farewell before shoving her phone back in her pocket and following the line as if shifted forward. 

“God mum,” she muttered as she did so, shaking her head. 

“What crawled up her ass and died?” 

Aziraphale jumped and dropped the book he was meant to be checking out. It hit the floor with a loud _bang._

“Sorry, sorry,” he said as he leaned over to pick it up, uncomfortably aware that every eye in the room had turned to him. He gripped the book tightly as he stood. The person who’d spoken was still standing beside him, her heavy skirt swaying slightly as she covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes crinkled in amusement. 

“Oh! Anathema! Hello there,” he greeted, startled to see her outside of the context he expected. She seemed a bit less terrifying without the grocery store uniform. Somehow. 

“Aziraphale,” she greeted. “How did he like the cake?” 

“How did you–?” he started to ask, but Anathema was tapping the side of her nose knowingly and though he had no idea what that was supposed to mean, he did understand that he wasn’t meant to question her further. She arched an eyebrow at him and he found the lingering worry about disturbing people by dropping the book fading away. “Yes, he did,” he told her instead, unable to keep the smile from his voice or face. “Quite a bit I think. Thank you for the recommendation.” 

A thought occurred to him, “May I ask why you’re here? I was under the impression that the libraries were closed to the public, especially at the end of the term.”Are you meeting someone here?” he asked, looking around for who she might know on campus. 

She gave him an odd look. “What?” 

“It’s just that the libraries are normally only for students. Not that I think you’re going to be a distraction or anything like that, I just mean–”

“Aziraphale, do you have an eye condition I should know about?” A flash of amber eyes and permanently unequal pupils overwhelmed him. He swallowed the thoughts back. He’d see Crowley later. They had plans. Friend plans. Well, study plans first and then friend plans. 

His palm ached for emptiness. 

“No?” he said. How was it he was always so off-kilter when around Anathema? 

“I’ve seen you here like twenty times? We spoke once?” He blinked, dragging his drifting mind back into the present moment and tying it fast to dock. 

“Really?” Oh, that was embarrassing. He tried so hard not to fit the spacey professor stereotypes and here he was, forgetting or not noticing he’d ever seen Anathema outside the shop. Thoughts of his family were never far from the surface now and the old ‘you’ve been overlooked’ nausea wanted to overtake him. 

She grinned, clearly unoffended. “It’s fine. I’m a third-year PhD in history, hence–” She hefted her pile of books to show him before shifting them from one hip to the other. “So, cake. He liked it?” 

(It occurred to Aziraphale that he’d never actually mentioned a ‘he’ to Anathema, primarily because he’d never spoken to her that he could recall before the purchasing of the cake.) 

“Yes, he did. Although, it did turn out to not be his birthday. Apparently, he accidentally lied about that.” 

Anathema barked out a laugh. “Oh good, he’s perfect for you.” Aziraphale’s face burned. 

“Now, see here,” Aziraphale tried to protest but he couldn’t summon the proper ire past the unbidden smile. So, instead of continuing on, he decided _to hell with it all_ ; somewhere between avoiding her till and taking her advice of pastry purchasing, Anathema had become a friend and, well, he wanted to talk about the guy he was maybe, kind of _seeing_ with a friend. 

“He’s wonderful,” he said. “Far too good for me really, but I don’t care because he’s so clever and kind and he’d probably be furious that I told you that because he likes to look dangerous, I think.” 

“Wonderful,” she grinned, looping her free arm in his, “And what’s his name. Please tell me it’s Dirk, he sounds like the sort to choose Dirk.” 

Aziraphale snorted, drawing the attention of a few people around them. He ignored their gazes as best as he could. “No, he’s not a Dirk. His name is Crowley, he’s been tutoring me in astronomy.” 

“Crowley who likes the stars, huh?” 

Aziraphale nodded rapidly. Suddenly all the besotted facts he’d been keeping locked away wanted to spill from him; he wanted to tell her about the little diagrams Crowley drew and how helpful they were when Aziraphale was lost, about how Crowley’s shoulders had relaxed and his eyes shone when he talked about the cacti, about the tiny quirk of his lips when he scooped his pet snake into his hands and how he’d called that snake Junior and given him a job. He wanted to say all that and also to talk about how his mind seemed to calm, just a bit, when he was around Crowley. 

“He does,” Aziraphale told her, “He draws me these pictures, well, not for me specifically, I suppose anyone else he tutors could use them as well.” 

“Does he?” 

“What?” 

“Tutor anyone else?” 

Aziraphale took a few steps forward to advance with the rest of the queue. “No, I.... I don’t suppose he does.” And wasn’t that a thought. 

Crowley was making all those diagrams for him. 

His chest felt overfull. 

“I hadn’t realized,” he murmured. 

“Good thing I’m here then,” Anathema said. “Someone has to point out the obvious to you bookbinders.” 

By the time they made it to the beleaguered librarian behind the desk, Aziraphale felt as if he’d always known Anathema. 

“Hullo, Miss Keen,” he gave the older woman his best smile. She wasn’t technically part of the Library Sciences department but she’d been working at the university for the better part of five decades and knew more than anyone else about the archives. 

“Mister Fell.” She nodded to him and took the book, carefully handwriting out the ISBN and then comparing it to the list of Reserves kept close by her side. “And you’re taking this straight to the good doctor?” she peered over her bottle-glass spectacles at him. Behind him, Aziraphale could hear Anathema struggling to stifle a laugh. 

“Yes,” he promised. “He sent me over to pick it up and we’ve our usual meeting on the quarter-hour.” 

“Good.” She stamped the book and closed the cover as carefully as she’d opened it. “And do tell that advisor of yours to get ens—wait, he right?—butt down here and talk to an old friend sometime, before I’m dead and buried.” 

Aziraphale nodded. “I’ll let him know.” 

Miss Keen handed him the book. “You tell him those exact words, then,” she told him, “I’ll know if you don’t.” 

Miss Keen elicited the instinctive desire to kowtow to a higher power in him and he had to bite back the obsequious words that wanted to escape as he took the book and stepped aside for Anathema to plonk her pile down on the counter. 

“Phone.” Anathema snapped her fingers at him. He’d pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to her before he quite realized what he was doing. She tapped at the screen for a few seconds before handing it back to him. “I texted myself, so you’ve got my number. I don’t do casual friendship, so we should hang out sometime soon.” She glanced at the pile of books on the counter. Miss Keen was halfway through writing out the numbers on the third book. “Well, after the next week. I’m busy and I’m sure you’ve something planned.” 

Next week. Ash Wednesday Mass and Gabriel’s text. 

Right. He still needed to make a decision about Gabriel’s command-disguised-as-friendly invite for the up-and-coming Ash Wednesday. 

“Promise?” Anathema said, prodding him from his thoughts. 

He summoned a smile. “Promise.” 

* * *

"Milk?” Doctor Haistwell asked over his shoulder as Aziraphale set the book on top of the pile beside his laptop. Aziraphale shook his head. 

“No, none for me, thank you.” He sat in his usual seat and watched as his advisor slowly went through the motions of preparing a cup of tea for himself. The smell was different than usual, earthier. 

“Is that a new blend?” Aziraphale asked. He picked up one of the smaller volumes from the desk, flipping through it idly and enjoying the smooth paper beneath his fingertips. 

“Hmm,” Haistwell responded. “Yes. A smoked Russian caravan I’ve had my eye on for quite a while. Oolong, keemun, and more than a devil’s portion of lapsang souchong if I’m not mistaken by the smell.” 

Aziraphale breathed in deep. The tea smelled like a campfire and starlight. He did not think he would enjoy the flavor, but there was something nostalgic about smelling it now. His parents had never been especially involved and they’d never taken their children camping (that was not something for people of _their_ station after all), but he’d read enough books about quarrelsome and adventurous boys when he was young to have a phantom memory of what it might have been like. 

Haistwell brought his cup to his desk and sat down, his fingers curled around the ceramic and a slight fog to his glasses from the steam. 

“So,” he said, “Tell me.” 

Aziraphale blinked. “Tell you what?” He cast about, had he been meant to prepare something for this meeting? He’d presented Haistwell with the result of his preliminary literature review last week and usually had at least two weeks to prepare new material for discussion, but perhaps Aziraphale should have confirmed. He’d hate to look as if he didn’t care or was taking advantage of–

“You’ve been more relaxed these last few weeks,” Haistwell continued. He took a sip of the tea and sighed, “Oh yes, that is exactly what I’d hoped. Do you know how caravan tea took its name?” 

Aziraphale shook his head, feeling desperately off-kilter. 

“In the 18th century camel caravans would leave China, bound for European Russia. At the time the Russians who could afford this tea believed that the chill air of the steppe imparted a flavor that could not be otherwise matched globally, especially not by the far cheaper southern route which would ensure that the tea is damaged by the harsh sea airs.” His fingers trailed through the steam, sending it swirling in little eddies and vortexes. The smell stung Aziraphale’s nose. There was something building, in the steam maybe or perhaps in the back of his skull, that felt like watchful tiger eyes, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why when his advisor was only talking about top-shelf, exotic tea.

“So they packed the tea and they took their camels and they crossed the steppe and siberia and each night they set the boxes of compressed teas beside the fires to keep it from freezing and the smoke from the fires that kept them all alive, from ash and poplar and fir and larch, filled the packed crates. By the time they arrived in the markets of the west the tea had taken on the unique taste of its travels, a tale told in smoke and spice and the unique mark of each step across the long journey.” 

Aziraphale was transfixed by the slow, quiet way Doctor Haistwell wove the tale, his voice a gentle cadence that mirrored the rhythmic steps of weary travelers. 

“They’d arrive in the markets and after delivering the earmarked orders they’d lay out what remained for the lucky few with enough coin to partake. Dark leaves gently unwound from their wrappings, still cool from the journey, and laid upon bright red cloth, the patterns embroidered to advertise their origins in the East. The entire market would smell of campfires long fallen to ember and ash before the sun reached its apex and the teas would be gone long before the traders packed up for the day.” 

He paused and took another sip. 

“Of course, today it’s just smoked in an industrial lodge and vacuum sealed for freshness, nothing so romantic as all that.” 

Aziraphale blinked, the magic of Haistwell’s words falling away from him. “That’s... that’s really interesting,” he said. “I’ve never tried it.” 

“Maybe next time, then,” Haistwell’s eyes crinkled with his smile, “Now, tell me what’s got you so relaxed. I need to bottle it for the rest of my students. I’m not sure I can handle one more crying undergraduate without putting in for early sabbatical. I’m thinking someplace sunny, maybe with fruity drinks, though I could be persuaded to see the wisdom in a mountainside cabin.” 

Aziraphale laughed. The strange, charged feeling had dissipated and Haistwell was his familiar advisor again. 

“I can’t picture you in hawaiian print,” he said, “A good knit is much more your speed.” 

“Cheeky you.” Haistwell waggled one finger at him. He set his teacup down with a quiet _clink._ “In all seriousness though, you’re doing alright?” 

Aziraphale thought about his plans for later and the full feeling suffused him once more. “Yes,” he said, “I really think I am. I did… not expect it. But, I’m happy.” 

“Good. I’m always here if that changes and you need to talk. Or if you want to talk about being happy. Whichever.”

Aziraphale knew that Haistwell was only his advisor, but it was hard not to compare the warmth and genuine affection he felt in this office with the chill he knew was awaiting him if he went home at Gabriel’s request. He didn’t want to go, didn’t want to endure days filled with quiet disdain and feeling set aside and forgotten, to say nothing of missing his classes. He’d, probably selfishly, become used _mattering_ here and he wasn’t really sure he knew how to go back to being one more silent and obedient toy to be trotted out before his mother’s friends. They’d coo and say ‘ _oh you must be so proud Abeline, he’s so clever. And so handsome, really the rugged look was so last year. He didn’t need to be fit if all he did was sit behind a desk_.’ 

He could feel his appetite shriveling to nothing at the mere thought. To say nothing of Gabriel’s pointed comments and Michael’s cool disregard and the distance that had grown between him and Uriel after he left accounting behind. Uriel had never understood, no matter how hard he tried to explain that he wasn’t abandoning her when he left the degree and their plans at opening a firm together behind. He’d just looked out at an entire lifetime spent counting other people’s money stretching before him and known he’d not survive it. 

“Thank you,” he said, dragging himself back into the present. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He thought about mentioning Crowley to him, about explaining that his tutor had suddenly, miraculously, become so much more than that. But, it felt premature. It was one thing to talk to a new friend about things, but telling Haistwell felt oddly like telling a parent and he wasn’t ready for anything like that yet. They’d not even had a proper date yet!

Haistwell hummed and drank a bit more tea before speaking again. “Well, if there’s nothing you wanted to talk about, how about we call it a day and I let you get back to your work and you let me get back to pretending to grade undergraduate essays?” 

Aziraphale stood, slinging his messenger bag back over his shoulder. “Have a nice week.”

Haistwell stood and leaned across the desk to clap one hand down on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “You too, son,” he said, “And I want you to remember that you can call me anytime, no matter the day or time. I’m here for you.” 

The void of his mother’s expectations yawned below Aziraphale and it was all he could do to smile past the sudden desire to cry. He nodded, unable to speak. 

Haistwell squeezed his shoulder once before letting go and settling back down behind his desk. 

Aziraphale started towards the door. He’d just opened it to step out when Haistwell spoke again, “Oh and if you see any undergraduates out there, I’m not in.” 

Aziraphale snorted. “Of course, Professor.” 

The door clicked closed behind him. 

* * *

Crowley was nervous. That wasn’t a particularly special state of affairs, since Crowley was often nervous even if he hid it very well. But his palms sweated and he felt like it was the first time meeting Aziraphale all over again except they were _friends_ now and if he fucked this up somehow, irreparably ruined it someway, then he was sure it would hurt him a hell of a lot more than not getting fucked would have on a normal one-off tinder _thing_.

But he stood right outside the door to Monmouth’s, leaning on the outside of the building and affecting a calm, cool air that belied his racing thoughts. His heel wobbled back and forth as he made an effort not to tap his toes and hide whatever impatience he stuffed deep down into his gut. He fought the urge to check the time again. 

And then Aziraphale showed up and Crowley’s shoulders slumped in relief. As he waited for– as he waited for _his date_ to come greet him, Crowley was all too pleased not to look deeply into the way his muscles felt oddly loose or the cotton that filled his mouth. He tilted his head down and his eyes up to stare at the gorgeous man headed his way without being obvious about it, but the half-knowing, half-flattered way Aziraphale smiled at him as he said ‘hullo’ made Crowley think that perhaps he hadn’t been as sneaky as he’d thought…

“You? Early to Monmouth’s?” Crowley teased, pushing himself off the wall and opening the door to the coffee shop for Aziraphale. “In a rush to a hot date or something?” 

Aziraphale’s smile turned just a touch coy (the bastard) and he dropped his eyes to the side with a flutter of his lashes (the _absolutely perfect_ bastard) murmuring, “Oh, maybe. I’ll have to see if I can find him though.” 

Crowley barked a laugh and let the door close behind them, sauntering over to the counter. He already knew Aziraphale’s usual (had done since their second meeting all those weeks ago) and his own preferences for the night, so he ordered for the two of them. As they crossed to the waiting area at the end of the counter, Aziraphale slipped into a cheerful ramble about some girl he’d met in a corner store and a librarian? It sounded vaguely interesting and Crowley wanted to pay attention, but for the life of him, Crowley couldn’t seem to focus on anything beyond the way Aziraphale’s mouth moved or how his hands gesticulated as he spoke, and nearly hip checked the coffee bar counter with all the sugars and cream as they rounded the corner on their way to the other side of the espresso counter. The glass containers of organic, raw sugar rattled against the marble countertop. 

“Oh– are you alright?” Aziraphale paused in his story, his brow furrowed. He stepped closer and laid a hand on Crowley’s lower back to lead him the rest of the way; protecting him from knocking into anything, or rather, protecting anything else from getting run over, Crowley was sure. But he couldn’t be upset about it, not with the heat that trickled through his shirt and jacket. He wasn’t entirely positive that human fingers were meant to be able to blaze quite that hotly, and yet he felt as if the skin at the base of his spine would be red were he to look in a mirror just then.

“Ng– Yea– um, sure, right ‘s rain.” Crowley mumbled and his fingers twitched with the desire to soften the wrinkles between Aziraphale’s eyebrows. And then he remembered; this was a date, he _knew_ Aziraphale, he was _allowed_ to touch him. So he didn’t fight back the urge any longer, let his hand alight gently on the side of Aziraphale’s head and his thumb smoothed the worry from his cherubic face. 

The fingers at the small of his back curled even as Aziraphale’s face opened in something like awe and wonder, and Crowley was struck with the sensation of being far too small. Like he was scrunched up in a people suit and the rest of him needed to burst free and scream from the mountaintops into the void of space about the joy that was eating him up inside. 

That sort of genuine emotion on Aziraphale’s face felt like it broke him open, cracking his ribs back until he could do nothing but spill everything that he was out of his chest, it felt like nothing he’d ever deserved or hoped to experience in his life. It felt like the free and unmerited favor of God, and Crowley thought that Aziraphale might be the only god he’d ever wanted to kneel for like this. 

Crowley inhaled sharply as his knees wobbled and Aziraphale caught him without a thought, wrapping his arm around Crowley’s waist entirely and pulling him to lean against his chest. His cheeks were flushed bright and Crowley knew they were a match for his own, a fact he refused to feel embarrassed about.

The barista cleared their throat and smiled slyly at the two when they broke apart, still blushing furiously before gathering their drinks. Crowley almost fell into the rubbish bin by the sugar-and-cream counter when Aziraphale’s hand returned to the small of his back. He wasn’t entirely sure his face wouldn’t melt off from the heat that blazed across it when he heard Aziraphale’s low chuckle.

“You, uh,” Crowley coughed and scratched at his cheek with his free hand, unsure what to do with it considering Aziraphale had no free hand to hold at the moment. And _god_ , just when did he start thinking of holding Aziraphale’s hand as a default setting of walking next to him? “You like sushi?” He grimaced. _Of bloody course he likes sushi, Crowley!_ He berated himself, _you_ know _he likes sushi, we’ve ordered sushi in a million times, you pillock!_

Aziraphale only chuckled and the gentle, almost absentminded, motion of his thumb stroking over Crowley’s spine made every thought, self-disparaging or otherwise, flee his head. “Yes, I do like sushi. Is that where you’d like to go for dinner?”

“Nrghmm?” Crowley attempted, shook his head, and then tried for real words this time, “Ah, is that, um, where _you’d_ like to go?”

“Sushi sounds lovely, my dear,” Aziraphale’s voice was soft and pleased and gentle, as if Crowley’s incompetence was a clever ploy, a purposeful act intended to put him at ease instead of the side effect of praying desperately not to mess this up through his nerves.

“Yeah, cool, ‘course. Sushi it is.” Crowley pushed the opening of the coffee lid up to his lips, swallowed nervously, and then hissed at the heat of it searing his tongue and gullet as the sickly sweet coffee went down his throat. “Alright, I know a place. You up for an adventure, angel?” Crowley pasted on what he hoped was his best roguish grin and shoved his fingers into his jeans pocket, pulling out and dangling his keys for something to fiddle with in his free hand. 

“How about I take you for a ride, hm?” Crowley smirked to himself, pleased to finally turn the tables, as Aziraphale coughed politely into his cocoa’s whipped cream and attempted to hide the way his own blush deepened.

* * *

Three hours in, the sushi settled in their stomachs, and their drinks topped up for the last time, or so they promised for the fourth time that night, Aziraphale and Crowley were well and truly sloshed. It wasn’t an issue, they were within walking distance of Aziraphale’s flat still, not much of an adventure really, but Crowley _had_ driven them around until they had finished their drinks and the reservation he’d sneakily made before starting up the car pinged on his phone as ready in fifteen minutes. 

All in all, Aziraphale was suitably impressed with Crowley’s underhanded date-scheduling prowess, and quite a bit less impressed with his speeding. In fact, he’d nearly made a single comment about crashing, but when he looked over at Crowley and remembered how the other man had melted in his hands after attempting to out drink the pain from _actually_ crashing three weeks ago he decided it was too soon. Holding his tongue did not stop him from _thinking_ all manner of things about how they could end up in a ditch (kindly ignoring the lack of ditches in London).

They’d eaten and talked and now they were giggling and laughing just like they would at Aziraphale’s flat when they drank together, taking turns shushing each other when they got just a little too rowdy because they were in public. They also held hands on top of the table and Crowley made quite a few poor attempts to eat with chopsticks in his left hand rather than give up holding Azirpahale’s with his right (he’d ended up simply stabbing the sushi with the chopsticks and daring anyone to comment). Aziraphale had laughed at him, of course, but he thought it was rather sweet and he was definitely charmed by the earnestness in which Crowley lived his life. 

Crowley was cool and suave on first look, and Aziraphale had seen him charm plenty of people right out of their socks (and their money) at the garden center when he bothered to try, but the more he grew to know Crowley, the more Aziraphale found he was a veritable wealth of uncool. But he was so honest about it or seemed to be around Aziraphale at least, that he couldn’t help but be smitten by it. The willingness to be so blunt about who he was and so unapolegetically free about his desires was… nigh on unimaginable to Aziraphale, who often felt like he was cooped up in a closet too small for him even if he wasn’t, technically, _closeted_. 

As much as Crowley liked snakes, Aziraphale told him after a few drinks, he thought the man would be much happier with wings. They’d probably be white, just to spite his sense of fashion, he’d said, to which Crowley had scoffed and sputtered before saying he’d just dye them black to match. He’d then wagged his eyebrows over his sunglasses at Aziraphale and pointedly called him _angel_ so Aziraphale took it as a point in his own favor for the banter. The conversation flowed and dipped from topic to topic in a gentle spiral, coming back around and picking up old threads before haring off after some minor observation or idea. 

“Eve is, just, yanno,” Crowley muttered, leaning over the table with a hand propping up his chin and an elbow rudely planted somewhere in the middle that had been cleared out except for a single bowl with two scoops of green tea ice cream and the chilled sake between them. He’d let go of Aziraphale’s hand a few minutes ago to gesticulate and take a sip of the sake that remained in his glass only to return it when Aziraphale offered him a bite of the ice cream from his spoon. Neither of them mentioned it as Aziraphale asked about his family. 

“Eve’s not _family_ though, we’re not related or anythin’, obviously. She’s says I’m far too pasty and Scottish to be a Sargon,” Crowley snorted after swallowing the bite of ice cream. “But, yanno.” Crowley shrugged and didn’t bother to explain any more.

“What about yours?” He asked, and Aziraphale sighed heavily. 

“I’m not sure what to say about them. I’ve got a mother and father, and three siblings. I’m the youngest son and second-to-youngest child. Gabriel is the eldest, followed by my sister Michael, which is short for Michaelangela, myself, and my youngest sister Uriel…”

Crowley giggle-snorted again, “A buncha angel names, innit?” 

Aziraphale pursed his lips, “Yes, you could say that. My mother would like to say she did it on purpose all the way through, but I think she only realized it after Michael in time to find the most esoteric angel in existence for mine.” Aziraphale rolled his eyes, he _did_ like his name, it was unique and he wouldn’t be shocked if no one else had it to be perfectly honest, but it had resulted in some poorly attempted bullying in primary, even if the would-be bullies couldn’t pronounce his name enough to bother him about it. Or to be clever about it. And he did get so tired of using ‘Azira’ because he couldn't trust that people would be able to manage his full name. 

“And then she got to Uriel who, I suspect, my father named because she couldn’t be bothered to try that search again–” Aziraphale continued, but was cut off by Crowley.

“What’s yours of then?” He asked, surprisingly clear sounding and sober, which shocked a bit of sobriety of his own into Aziraphale. The conversation suddenly felt a lot more important for some reason. 

“Ah, well, Aziraphale was a bit… incompetent really. He shows up in only one version of the bible, the _Buggre Alle This For A Larke_ edition, there’s only one really and the typesetter replaced a good bit of Ezekiel with a rant about his job. But I digress, in Genesis 3 after talking about how Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden he, well, he lies to God. Gave his flaming sword away when he was supposed to be defending the gates.” Aziraphale finished, as always, a little morose over the story. It… felt too real, too much like he’d been destined to upset his siblings and disappoint his mother, if he were truly honest about it all.

Crowley hummed aggressively and Aziraphale looked up at him. Crowley’s lips had thinned and his jaw set in a way Aziraphale had long since learned meant that the man was feeling obstinate and equally as likely to sulk as he was to fistfight a chair or other woodwork, if drunk enough.

“Just doesn’t seem like he was incompetent.” Crowley shrugged, letting go of Aziraphale’s hand long enough to thread his fingers between Aziraphale’s before leaning back in the booth. Aziraphale felt Crowley’s legs shift to cage his own and hook underneath his ankles. It was an odd position, but felt comforting in a way Aziraphale would not have expected. 

“Oh? You don’t think so? He’d messed up what was presumably his _only_ job at that point. Angels were originally made to guard things and sing God’s praises, not for compassion. In fact, it _could_ be argued that they were never made for anything of the sort. Great and terrible love and all that, burn your eyes out.” Aziraphale pointed out in the scholarly tone he got sometimes while drinking. Most called it condescending, Aziraphale liked to think it was _smart_ sounding.

Crowley smirked at Aziraphale in a way that made him sit up straighter in his seat, preparing for battle, ready to thwart some wiles or whatever else bumbling, too-kind angels named Aziraphale did. “Yeah, but you said ‘given away’, like he chose to do it. That kinda means he wasn’t _bad_ at his job or anything, just saw a way to defend humanity or something instead of the garden. Adam and Eve weren’t wearing more than fig leaves, which kinda leads to an assumption they hadn’t ever needed to, I dunno, figure out how to live in the real world, let alone make a weapon against wild animals or whatever. Sounds like that angel did the right thing, even if it wasn’t what he was told to do.” He shrugged, just a bit too casual for Aziraphale to fall for it, but oh did he love a decent debate and he couldn’t quite stop himself from smiling.

“So you don’t think he did the wrong thing? I bet you’d say the same for the serpent too!” Aziraphale half-accused. He was a little shocked when Crowley sticking his tongue out at him, and his smile turned into a grin.

“That snake couldn’t have done the right thing, it was a demon!” Crowley leaned in again, astonishingly close to Aziraphale’s face until he could feel the breath of his exhale on his lips, smelling of cold green tea and soy sauce. 

“Bet the fucker knew how miserable knowing the right and wrong things was and wanted to make us know it too. Got ‘em kicked out even! Could’a been livin’ in paradise right now, angel,” Crowley winked at him, which Aziraphale had only known because this close the sunglasses were nearly see-through with the light shining right above them and illuminating Crowley’s beautifully amber eyes. “Completely starkers and eatin’ fig tarts as you like!”

Aziraphale laughed, a little shocked and a lot amused, pulling away before he did something silly like snog the man in front of him senseless for being so utterly, wildly unpredictable and genuine.

“If mass was anything like this, I think I wouldn’t mind going on Wednesday.” He chuckled before realizing what he said and his hand shot up to hide his mouth. Unfortunately, it was the hand currently holding Crowley’s and he’d forgotten about it in a brief panic, smacking his lips with Crowley’s knuckles.

“Angel!” Crowley pulled his hand back and shifted around in one smooth motion to sit on Aziraphale’s side of the booth and crowd in next to him on the little sliver of seat on the edge, his hands cradling Aziraphale’s face like something precious and the pads of his thumbs hot on his lips. If Aziraphale hadn’t already stopped breathing, he was pretty sure that would have done it. Oh look, his heart might have skipped a beat too. Rude.

“Aziraphale, you alright? Maybe we should have stopped drinking when the ice cream came out…,” Crowley hummed, turning Aziraphale’s head gently as if he’d gotten a head wound instead of accidentally knocking Crowley’s hand into his teeth like the utter fool he was.

“Of course, dear, I'm fine,” Aziraphale laid his hands on Crowley’s elbows and did his best to refrain from turning his head and pressing too-besotted kisses into the palms of Crowley’s amazingly distracting hands. Calloused in all the right places to turn his skin to fire and soft where he cupped small plants and snakes and other things he loved. Aziraphale resolutely didn’t think about how he was cupping his face. (That was a lie, a hopeful, deluded lie.) “I just– Mass with my family. It always puts me off my thoughts, nothing to worry about, Crowley.”

Crowley was silent for a moment, “With your family?” He asked after a little while.

“Yes, for Ash Wednesday. Why?”

“You know… I’ve never been to mass before.” Crowley murmured, his thumbs moved from Aziraphale’s lips to his cheeks, stroking along the ridge of them and absolutely not letting Aziraphale gather his blasted thoughts enough to reply intelligently. Crowley truly was a devil, sent to vex him, he supposed, though that thought seemed far too pleased to be properly vexed.

“Did you want to come?” Aziraphale asked without realizing he planned to do it until the words were already half-gone.

Crowley huffed a soft laugh, “Oh, I’d definitely like to come. With you, of course.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Timeline!!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yze7p4U45UiVFVYjsqHQe1qf9HKzWxyQ2D4wH7W4PE0/edit?usp=sharing) We'll update it as chapters go :)


	12. Of Silver Spoons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter features distant parental dynamics that some readers may find distressing. Summary in end notes for those who may need to skip. It begins at the arrival to the Fell Manor.
> 
>  **Lines to skip from and to**  
>  To skip a distant dinner and mentions of Aziraphale being ignored or mocked by family: "Crowley nodded, filing that away as the lane began to curve gently around the base of a hill. " to "They made their way back to the guest room and each went to their overnight bags."
> 
> To skip the dream where certain things are re-hashed and Aziraphale is ignored or not seen by his family: "Then he was gone. " to "Finally he comes to his bedroom."
> 
> Also:  
> In-text we have written out the emoji :like this: so that any text/screen reading software can read the fic as accurately as possible without losing some of the intentions in translation.
> 
> That being said, the emoji used in the fic are below:
> 
> In Aziraphale's contacts, Crowley is [Crowley 🌌]  
> In Crowley's contacts, Aziraphale is [🐏✨]

[Monday 10:05 pm]  
_I can barely stand this!_

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:07 pm]  
_Stand what?_

[Monday 10:08 pm]  
_Oh just all of it! The tea’s out and the shops_  
_nearby are closed and I’ve still got so much  
left of this draft to write and can’t stay up like  
normal because of the train tomorrow!_

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:08 pm]  
_What’re ya doing on a train tomorrow?  
Thought there was that mass thing on  
Wednesday_

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:09 pm]  
_short day trip_

[Monday 10:10 pm]  
_Ah, well, the train is to Mass. Or rather,_  
_to be picked up by Gabriel for mass the_  
_next day._

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:11 pm]  
_ah dip_

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:11 pm]  
_no seriously just dip out_

[Monday 10:14 pm]  
_Crowley! I can’t do that! It’s my family…_

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:15 pm]  
_yeah fine but you’re going down on_  
_tuesday? I’ll just drive you down on wed_  
_if you don’t want to stay there, good excuse_  
_to leave early too_

[Monday 10:15 pm]  
_You would? Really? It’s a bit of a drive,_  
_my dear, I can’t imagine you’d really want to_  
_spend so much time just to go to Mass_  
_with me._

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:16 pm]  
_i’ll spend my time how i like and if that’s_  
_with you then sorry you’re stuck with me_

[Monday 10:16 pm]  
_I’d like that, I think. Being stuck_  
_with you, I mean._

[Monday 10:16 pm]  
_As long as it means you’d_  
_be stuck with me too._

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:17 pm]  
_i can’t think of a single universe_  
_I’m not stuck on you_

[Crowley :milky_way: Monday 10:18 pm]  
_with_

Aziraphale smiled at his phone for a long minute before he let it drop face-down onto his chest as he reclined in bed. The laptop was still on his thighs and he was propped up by a veritable armada of pillows as he tried to fit more words into the background chapter of his thesis, but he couldn’t quite seem to concentrate over the ache of the smile stretched over his face and the giddy feeling talking with Crowley caused enveloping his chest.

Eventually (after ten more words added) he sighed and picked up his phone, opening up the message thread with his brother and to begin typing out a text. _Thank you for preparing to pick me up tomorrow for Mass, but I have a_

Aziraphale paused at that. Boyfriend? No, they’d only held hands, went on a single date that didn’t end in disaster. They’ve only known each other for… he counted back in his head and gasped aloud. Only two months? That’s preposterous! It seemed like so much longer. If felt, a little, as if he’d known Crowley for all his life…

[Monday 10:38 pm]  
_Thank you for preparing to pick me up_  
_tomorrow for Mass, but I have a friend who_  
_has said he’ll drive me. I invited him to Mass,_  
_like Mother is always asking us to do._

[Gabriel Fell Monday 10:43 pm]  
_Azira, I’ve already rearranged my schedule_  
_to fit in picking you up from the train at 10._

[Monday 10:44 pm]  
_I am very sorry about that! I had hoped that not_  
_needing to pick me up would give you some extra_  
_free time, even if you couldn’t revert back to your_  
_usual schedule._

[Gabriel Fell Monday 10:48 pm]  
_Yeah, fine. Are you still coming tomorrow?_  
_Mother wanted us for dinner as well, not just_  
_Mass on Wednesday._

Aziraphale felt his heart drop into his stomach and his breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t possibly ask Crowley, certainly not. His family– they, well… weren’t the best company, and tended to be rather forgetful, if one asked Aziraphale. One often didn’t ask Aziraphale though, and that might have been part of the problem in the first place.

He sighed heavily and closed his laptop. He’d not be able to focus on historiography until this was cleared up.

* * *

Crowley absolutely, with no doubt in his mind, should not be awake right now. He’d fallen asleep much earlier than he meant to and ended up napping for a solid 7 hours right after work, waking up right before Aziraphale messaged. He’d groaned at the time and figured it served him right for pulling so many late nights followed by early mornings recently in an attempt to keep up with Aziraphale’s wild schedule. Well, it wasn’t all that crazy, to be fair, it just fit oddly against Crowley’s.

[:sheep: :sparkles: Monday 10:49 pm]  
_I’m very sorry, it looks like my family is  
wanting me home for dinner tomorrow too,  
not just Mass on Wednesday. _

[Monday 10:49 pm]  
_yeah that’s fine_

[:sheep: :sparkles: Monday 10:50 pm]  
_We could maybe have dinner on  
Wednesday night then? I’d still like to  
see you, if that’s alright._

[Monday 10:51 pm]  
_nah. I mean we can have dinner on wed too_  
_if you want, but we should play it by ear yeah?_  
_Maybe takeout or something on the drive back._

[:sheep: :sparkles: Monday 10:51 pm]  
_Drive back?_

Crowley’s palms were sweating and he blinked quietly at his phone.

[Monday 10:52 pm]  
_yeessss?_

[ Monday 10:52 pm]  
_I thought I was driving you down? I mean if  
you don’t want me to go that’s fine_

[Monday 10:52 pm]  
_but i’ve got the whole day off anyway,  
so tues night vs wed morning doesn’t  
make a difference to me_

Was that… too forward? Crowley bit at his lower lip with absent-minded nerves, feeling a little separate from his body until a sharp pain of skin being pulled off and the metallic tang of blood on the tip of his tongue brought him back.

“Fucking _bollocks!_ ” He hissed to himself. Crowley sighed and shoved himself up from his mattress on the ground and plodded over to the sink for a glass of water, only vaguely aware of how his hands shook.

[:sheep: :sparkles: Monday 10:53 pm]  
_Oh! I hadn’t thought you would want  
to meet my family. They can be difficult  
sometimes if you’re not used to their  
eccentricities. _

[Monday 10:54 pm]  
_Eccentricities? You haven’t met Eve then have ya_

[Monday 10:54 pm]  
_eccentric is her middle name I’m pretty sure_

[Monday 10:54 pm]  
_i can do eccentricities_

* * *

The sun rose on Tuesday the 5th and Crowley was already up, nervously pacing through the greenhouse, needlessly spritzing at plant leaves and winding himself up until he nearly jumped out of his skin when Eve gently called his name and set Junior on his shoulders. Immediately, he relaxed from the overstressed and overstretched clothesline that made up his body, the familiar weight of the snake on his shoulders was soothing, and occupied his mind with remembering to be careful and mindful of the creature balancing on him.

“Yea?” Crowley grumbled and set down the mister to retie the perfectly tight knot on his half-apron he wore sometimes for gardening, not quite willing to meet Eve’s eyes for whatever reason. Junior’s tiny tongue flicked along the back of his left ear as the little snake inspected him.

“Gonna over-water the hothouse too?” Eve asked dryly, sighing a little when Crowley flinched and grimaced at that. He shoved his hands in his jean pockets, hoping she hadn’t realized just how nervous he was over nothing.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Eve sidled up to him and leaned against the table, careful not to look at Crowley head-on. He couldn’t help but be annoyed and grateful simultaneously that she treated him like a cornered animal when he was nervous like this. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” The word burst out of him like the roar of rocket engines and he winced again at the volume.

“Nothin’, old lady, ‘s nothin’.” He repeated, slower and quieter, careful not to bother Eve with his jittering either.

“Don’t sound like nothin’, _whippersnapper_.” She shot back, turning her head just enough that he could catch the unimpressed look on her face. Crowley sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses as he scrubbed his hands over his face, wishing they were softer.

(Aziraphale’s hands were soft, his traitorous mind supplied, perhaps _he_ could touch you this way, could soothe the lines of your brow.)

“Gotta go to mass.” Crowley muttered. “An’ I don’t know what ‘m suppsoed to wear.”

“That all?” Eve smiled wryly, as if she might be able to guess his sudden religious bent. “Catholic or Anglican? Or Methodist?”

Crowley’s shoulders slumped, “They’ve got _choices_?” He whined pitifully, grumbling to himself when Eve laughed and he sneered up at her, “I’m _serious,_ Eve! If you don’t want to help, go laugh somewhere else.” Junior shifted, his cool scales soft against Crowley’s neck and he reeled himself back in once again.

Eve’s laugh quickly turned to smothered chuckles and she grabbed his hand in hers, patting the back of it in a way that made Crowley think of mothers and warm things. The thought was a bittersweet taste in the back of his mouth, his own mother hadn’t even had much of a knack for being motherly and as much as he loved Eve for it, sometimes he thought he’d have rather not known what he’d missed out on.

“Alright then, kiddo.” She paused, a serious look overtaking her face, enough to make Crowley turn and pay attention. “What _do_ you want to wear? Mass can be important to some people.”

Crowley chewed at his skinned lip a bit until he caught a hint of blood again and forced himself to stop. He counted up, slowly, waiting for all the words to blurt from his lips at fifteen. “I don’t know! I want to wear something nice but I don’t know if I’ve got anything,” he threw his hands in the air and waved them, trying desperately to come up with something that _meant_ something, “good, I guess. I dunno if I’ve got anything… worthwhile, yanno?”

Eve hummed and shuffled closer, drawing him into an embrace with an arm around his shoulder, careful of Junior, “Of course you do, hun. You’ve got _plenty_ worthwhile. You’re– you’ve got more than enough, I’ve seen it. Just pick what you’re comfortable with, go with what’s most genuinely _you_ and if he don’t like it, then that’s on him.”

Crowley scowled at that but didn’t shy away from being hugged. Eve needed hugs, he reminded himself, so it was ok. Older people needed like twelve or something a day to live or whatever, so the least he could do was make sure she got her hugs cause he lov– liked her plenty as a parent– a person. Yep, good person, Eve was, didn’t deserve his screw ups, so he’d give her hugs and never mention that he liked them too. Otherwise she might feel obligated to give him more, and old people only need like ten a day or whatever, so more than that and she might go barmy. Already was a bit.

Even so, he felt a little like they were talking about more than just his clothes, so he didn’t really say much else, just nodded into Eve’s shoulder. He counted to fifteen as slowly as he could and stopped there, unable to make himself push to sixteen, and it felt like time froze and his lungs froze and his heart froze in his chest for that whole second until it started up again and he pulled away from Eve. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen–

“Right, thanks. I’ll find somethin’ I guess.” Crowely gently plucked Junior off his shoulders and from his neck where he’d curled his tail and dropped him off on the apple tree branches, never pausing for a moment, and exited the greenhouse without another word.

_Time to pack._

* * *

“So lemme make sure I’ve got this straight,” Crowley tapped his fingers along the worn leather of the Bentley’s steering wheel, “You’ve three siblings, Gabriel who’s a colossal dick who I’ve been made to promise not to punch–”

“I really would appreciate that, yes.” He was relieved to see the smile that quirked the corner of Aziraphale’s mouth. Good.

“You’re too nice, angel.” He continued speaking over Aziraphale’s protests. “So Gabriel, the unpunchable-douche-canoe. Then, next up is Michael whom I’m to call Michael because if I call her by her given name she might kill me and to quote you here ‘that really would put a damper on things’.”

Aziraphale huffed out a laugh. “Well it would. I happen to like you alive, my dear.”

Crowley swallowed back everything that wanted to rise in his chest when Aziraphale said that; a complicated mess of instinctive ‘fuck you, only I decide if I’m living’ and new and terrifyingly strong desire to keep Azraphale smiling.

“Sure,” he said when he’d managed to shove those feelings away once more, “Ah, Gabriel, Mikey, and the last one was... Uriel?” Aziraphale nodded. They passed by two tall trees, framing either side of the narrow lane. Aziraphale had told him a few minutes ago that this was all Fell land, but it was rapidly becoming more curated, the wild brambles and thickets giving way to a carefully trimmed verge.

“And Uriel is both younger than you and adopted, yeah?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale nodded. “She was adopted when we were very small, ah, perhaps two years old? I don’t remember ever being without her at the very least.”

Crowley nodded, filing that away as the lane began to curve gently around the base of a hill.

“And your mum–”

“Mother.”

“What?” He glanced over at Aziraphale. The smile had fallen away from his face and he held his hands clenched tightly on his lap.

“Mother, not mum,” Aziraphale’s words were slow. This wasn’t new knowledge, not something he’d never revealed before, but it also clearly wasn’t something he was happy about.

Another, very different, tangle of emotions tried to claw its way from the spot just to the left of his liver where he stored them. Talons poking at his spine, insidious little voice sliding up his nerves and veins, _you wouldn’t know anything at all about that would you,_ Anthony _? At least you know it wasn’t Aziraphale’s fault, at least he didn’t deserve any of it_.

“–owley?”

Crowley shook his head, trying to clear it.

“Sorry, Aziraphale,” he muttered, “Lost in thought. So, s’your Mother-not-mum and your father is...?”

“They separated when Uriel and I were ten,” Aziraphale told him, “He lives not terribly far away and may be at Mass tomorrow.” He paused and Crowley caught the way his gaze darted towards Crowley and then away, back to the bright green hill that rose on the passenger side of the Bentley. The sun filtered through the windshield unevenly, blocked by the thick wood on Crowley’s side and unfettered on Aziraphale’s, casting a warm glow around the other man even as Crowley sat in the shadows.

“It was amicable,” Aziraphale went on, “Or at least, it was amicable in public. I’ve less than no inkling what happened behind closed doors.”

There was something there, something that made Crowley quietly furious, that Aziraphale would see closed doors between himself and his parents when the decisions were so big. Eve told Crowley everything and he tried to return the favor when he could. In fact, the only thing he’d ever kept from her was the Barantrum, but that was for her safety. He knew in the same way that he knew when Junior was hungry or the orchids needed misting that Eve wouldn’t be able to stop herself from meddling if she knew about the Barantrum and he refused for her to be hurt because she had some mistaken idea that he deserved her protection.

He managed to strangle all that down to simply, “They didn’t tell you?”

Aziraphale laughed, a quiet, sad little thing that only fueled the fury.

“No, why would they? I was never very good at connecting with them. I’m sure they told Gabriel or Michael, someone who could actually be of some use to them.”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley couldn’t find anything more than that to say for three breaths, struggling to draw words through the haze of terrible invectives he wanted to fling at the people he was about to meet for the first time. Finally, he managed to say, his voice strangled, “That’s not... how families are meant to work.”

(He was aware of the irony that _he_ was the one saying this, but really, if anyone had experience with what a family _wasn’t_ it was Crowley.)

Aziraphale reached out and patted his arm and Crowley had the sudden distinct impression that _he_ was the one being comforted. He opened his mouth to protest, to ensure that Aziraphale was aware that it was his family who was in the wrong, not him, but they’d rounded the last of the hill and were pulling up to an ornate gate in worked iron.

“Oh good,” Aziraphale said, checking his watch. “Your attempts to break the sound barrier got us here in wonderful time. I'll be able to give you a short tour before dinner, wouldn’t want you getting lost on your way to the loo in the middle of the night.”

Crowley’s stomach went a bit squirrely at the idea that the house might be large enough to require a ‘tour’. It wasn’t that he’d never been around large homes or the people who lived in them—his own childhood home had been quite spacious by London standards, after all. He just hadn’t really realized what ‘Manor’ entailed until the gate was sliding open in front of them and the manicured acreage sprawled out as far as he could see.

The Manor itself was situated atop the hill they’d circled, a stately box in creams and rust with what looked like a classic garden spilling down the western slope of the hill nearly to the edge of the woods. The late afternoon sun slanted across the entire vista, lighting the manor so that the pale places glowed, bright and welcoming.

“Home sweet home,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley gave in to the urge to comfort and took up his hand.

There was a circular drive in front of the manor, and when Crowley pulled to a stop an older man materialised at the passenger door of the car.

“Where the devil did he–?” But Aziraphale was already pushing the door open and enthusiastically hugging the man.

“Brother Francis!” He said, the melancholy of before falling away in favor of an easy smile. “I thought you were meant to be on Majorca right now! Not that I’m not utterly pleased to see you of course.”

The old man laughed and doffed the floppy cap he wore in greeting. “Young Mister Azira,” he said, “A pleasure as always to see your smiling face.” Crowley took a deep, fortifying breath and, after a quick count, unfolded himself from the driver’s seat, pasting on what he hoped was a pleasant expression.

“Ah, this is my, uh, Crowley. I mean–this is my tutor, Crowley,” Aziraphale’s hands flicked out as he gestured a bit too expansively. “He’s coming to mass tomorrow. Crowley, this is Brother Francis. He was a monk in his youth, though he’s our groundskeeper now. He’s been with the family for as long as I’ve been alive.”

Bloody _hell_ , Crowley thought even as Brother Francis laughed and scolded Aziraphale for making him sound old, _even their gardener is a priest._ He quickly resolved to touch as little as possible, lest he burn to nothing more than sunglasses and particularly unholy ashes.

Brother Francis and Aziraphale chatted amicably for a few moments while Crowley pulled their bags from the boot. Then, Aziraphale was promising to visit the garden cottage in the morning and they were being chivvied inside by a maid.

She guided them too quickly through the house for Crowley to get a good look around, but what he did see was of such obvious quality that he was left feeling shabby and ashamed of the paltry clothes he’d brought.

“Erm, are you quite sure this is the room Mother had you prepare?” Crowley was drawn back to himself to find they’d reached the upstairs landing and were being shown a small room with two double beds on either side of an ornate bedside table. The idea that they were meant to share had not occurred to him until this very moment.

He swallowed heavily.

He’d only seen Aziraphale sleep a handful of times when their tutoring sessions ran late, but he treasured each memory. When he slept the little wrinkle between his brow smoothed to almost nothing and the worries in the corners of his mouth fell away. He looked... well he looked like everything Crowley wanted him to look like when they were together.

How was he meant to survive an entire night knowing Aziraphale was less than an arm length away, looking like _that?_

The maid nodded, already clearly mentally done with the conversation. “She said ‘the guest room with the doubles’, sir. That’s this one. If you’ve a problem, I’m afraid you have to take it up with Mrs. Fell.”

“But, I–” Aziraphale paused and sighed heavily. “No, my apologies. This is fine. Thank you for your assistance.”

Then, as she turned away he looked back to Crowley with a tremulous smile, “Well, welcome to Fell Manor.”

* * *

The room was large enough that the sound of spoons on bowls was nearly deafening. Aziraphale  _ hated  _ this room. Why had his mother decided this was where they should dine? Crowley was the only extra guest, they didn’t need a space intended to comfortably seat 30 or more. 

Mother sat at the head of the table of course, she’d certainly not have Gabriel take that place (no matter how much she favored him). Their father had… left, as it were, and most of the time it felt like he’d taken most of the overt love out of the house with him. Everything they got from Mother was cooler, open to interpretation, and a lot of the time she wasn’t even really there. Even if she was physically present, there wasn’t always a guarantee her mind wasn’t wandering, that she wasn’t thinking of what  _ she’d _ like to think about rather than the conversation you were attempting to have with her. And–

Crowley gently grasped his wrist and Aziraphale jerked his head to look over at him only for his eyes to widen at the worry on his face. He followed Crowley’s gaze to the table and noticed his own knuckles were white on his dinner fork. Well, imagine that… He carefully prised his fingers from the fork and set it gently down on the tablecloth, careful not to make a sound any louder than the rest of the family eating. Crowley squeezed his wrist once more, just as gentle as the grip had been, and very comforting.

So he turned and smiled as best he could, which he was confident was good enough to fool most, though it faltered when Crowley didn’t look particularly convinced, even if he  _ did _ let go of Aziraphale’s wrist. Aziraphale cleared the emotion from his throat and looked away, back to his plate and then up when the back of his neck crawled in the sudden silence.

His family was all looking at him, patiently (and dispassionately), waiting for him to say something now that he’d interrupted the silence.  _ Oh sugar _ . He cursed inwardly and racked his head for something to bring up.

“I, ah, have I mentioned that I’m just about done with the background chapter for my thesis? It was slow going at first, astronomers are not an especially historically minded bunch, let me tell you.” He tried, voice a little wobbly despite his best efforts to not quail under the combined stares of Michael, Uriel, and Gabriel. To say nothing of the very attentive way Mother was sipping her wine. He’d not managed to earn her attention with that, despite his disruptive faux pax. He coughed lightly again and sipped his own wine. It was a perfect compliment to the meal,  _ of course _ . “Working with the Astronomy department with their ah, sailor’s charts…” 

Gabriel huffed, an amused sound that made the bottom of Aziraphale’s stomach fall out taking what little remained of his appetite with it. “Sailor’s charts? Must be  _ exciting _ . Can’t imagine all the math I hear is involved with Astronomy agreeing with you.”

Uriel was smirking into her cup and Aziraphale was sharply reminded of all the exams they’d brought home in school, all the time he’d been told if he just studied a bit longer he could get the grades that came to her so naturally. He looked away. 

“I, um, well I–” Aziraphale attempted, his hands going to his knees, curved into claws and grabbing at his legs tightly. His thumbs worked up and down along his kneecaps in near-invisible fretting. He’d had so much practice at this, at looking pleasant and mild and–

"Aziraphale’s pretty good at the maths bit." Crowley spoke up suddenly, with a deceptively gregarious smile and a sharper glint to the whole of him than Aziraphale was used to seeing, and he was talking just a little rougher than he normally did. Presumably on purpose. "Prof's a bit stuck up though, keeps needling him without any sort of good reason. Aziraphale takes it in good grace… Better than  _ some _ could I imagine."

Aziraphale stopped breathing at that, sure the compliments were nice, but whatever Gabriel looked to be gearing up to say wouldn't be. A quick dart of his eyes to Mother confirmed she’d ceased to pay even the mildest bit of attention, or at least not enough to be anything but vaguely present and even more vaguely amused at something likely only she was following. Mother was going to be exactly useless in calming the table down and Aziraphale wasn't quite sure how it had gotten to this point so quickly. 

"And really–" Crowley cut off whatever Gabriel might have started in on with what sounded like the wind up to his own tirade, and dread pooled in Aziraphale’s chest, caught like a rainwater in a leafy gutter. Without thinking about it the hand closest to Crowley detached from his own knee and dug into the meat of Crowley’s thigh cruelly, causing him to yelp a little before Aziraphale realized he should lighten his grip. 

From directly across the table, Michael made eye contact with Aziraphale, everything about her coolly disinterested save the stare that made him feel even smaller than the stars did. She blinked at him like a big cat who had nothing to fear from anything in her environment, before she turned her attention onto Gabriel in full. Aziraphale relaxed as she asked about the firm in which they all worked–something about some case or another that Gabriel was soloing (with all his assistants' help, of course) which he was more than happy to talk and brag about. 

The conversation moved on without them, even Uriel piped up some to give her opinion, and lack of regard in places, of their brother's plans and occasional leaps of logic that didn't always land correctly. They were always this way about work. Three children at play with an overwrought logic puzzle that didn't have any implications behind it more than their entertainment and perhaps a paycheck. Aziraphale was, once again, nothing more than the new kid in town, left out on the edge of the playground. 

Crowley's hand slipped over Aziraphale’s left wrist once again and Aziraphale breathed a quiet " _ oh, I'm sorry! _ " before releasing Crowley's leg from what remained of his death grip on it. Instead of letting his hand return to rub holes into the knees of his tweed trousers or to hold onto Aziraphale’s wrist, Crowley snaked his fingers down past Aziraphale’s wrist and the palm of his hand, entwining their fingers together. Crowley squeezed and suddenly Aziraphale could breathe again. 

He gasped in a shuddering breath and tried to smile again at Crowley, though feared he hadn't managed it well with the way his hand gripped at Crowley like a lifeline. He couldn't remember a time he felt more vulnerable or flayed open with his family so distracted from him as this. 

"Anthony," Mother intoned gently, though considering how quickly his siblings subsided at her voice, Aziraphale thought it might as well have been a crack of thunder in the distance. "What do you do? For your work." 

Mother's undivided attention could be a blessing or a curse and there wasn't any good way to tell which this would be, like rain in a desert was just as likely to cause flash floods as super blooms. Aziraphale fought the urge to pull Crowley closer and shield him from the sudden deluge of attention. 

Crowley looked towards Mother and Aziraphale despaired for the stubborn set of his jaw that at any other time might have been overwhelmingly fetching. "I garden." He replied after some time of silence. Fifteen rapid beats of Aziraphale's heart before he could remember to squeeze Crowley's hand, hidden below the tablecloth. 

"How delightful." Mother replied with a smile that looked genuine through and through even if her voice was airy and impartial. She was wickedly hard to read these days, especially when she didn't feel up to making the effort to be entirely  _ there _ . Not for the first time, Aziraphale wondered what exactly their father had found so entrancing about Mother, but those were thoughts for a much less fraught time. 

<hr>

By some unseen ruling, or maybe they just  _ knew _ the ineffable will of the Mother, Crowley thought to himself uncharitably, all of the Fell household stood after the plates were cleared from dinner by a butler and a maid, and Crowley couldn’t help but feel  _ distinctly _ out of place once again. Aziraphale was bloody  _ rich,  _ and he’d thought he’d had an idea of something like that. A flat on his own, no real mention of a job to keep it, that sort of thing, in a good location in London, but fucking hell. 

This was almost too much. Well, no, it wasn’t too much, of course, Crowley wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to get  _ too much _ of Aziraphale, but it was almost. Especially considering Aziraphale hadn’t even thought to warn him on their hours drive to the manor (a fucking  _ manor _ ) to expect them to be rich sods on top of being his ‘successful, douchey siblings,’ - Crowley’s words, of course. Aziraphale didn’t curse stronger than “sugar” unless Crowley was extremely lucky in surprising him. (Then sometimes he got to hear “frick.”)

Aziraphale’s hand was suddenly back in Crowley’s own and he let himself be pulled towards the rooms they’d been in earlier. Azirphale led them down a couple of hallways and took a turn Crowley  _ thought  _ wasn’t correct and into a deeper part of the wing of the house. It felt a little like Azirphale was looking for something–except that he knew exactly where it  _ ought _ to be and was a little worried that it might not be there. 

Soon, though, they stopped in front of a door. It was a little more worn than some of the others around it and had a bit of a gouge in the middle of the door, nothing that would normally be noticed, except Crowley was in the habit of noticing things when he was high-strung. And he was certainly, absolutely, high strung after that disaster of a dinner. The Mother spoke once the entire time, to  _ Crowley _ , not even to her own kids, Gabriel was a douche-canoe just like he’d thought, Michael was probably the only person he was legitimately worried might gut him in his sleep (the Baratrum gang wouldn’t do it in his sleep if it came to that), and Uriel was… a smug fucker.

The door opened slowly under Aziraphale’s free hand and Crowley huffed a little at seeing all the rows and shelves of books. A spare library? There were a few sparse shelves and a couple spaces that looked like they might have held bookshelves that at some point had been cleared out. And then he caught sight of a mattress, on a bed of course, but a clearly bare mattress beneath a light cover that wasn’t being used at all. So, perhaps, a spare room?

Crowley hummed aloud and squeezed Aziraphale’s hand in his comfortingly and resisted the urge to press a kiss to the man’s temple. He was getting good at this, resisting the urge to kiss Aziraphale. Fifth time and counting, today, that he’d done it. Crowley thought to himself that he might be well on his way to a habit. 

“ _ Another _ library?” Crowley prompted, gazing askance at Aziraphale. “I thought you already toured me through all of ‘em earlier.”

“Ah– well, that is to say... no, it’s not.” Aziraphale’s fingers twitched and he fidgeted, looking everywhere but at Crowley with a faint blush on his cheeks. “This was my room.” And suddenly the blush didn’t look so cute after all, not when it was from mortification instead of pleasure or good-natured embarrassment. 

“Oh.” Crowley muttered, squeezing Aziraphale’s hand exactly thrice. One. Two. Three. And then relaxed his grip so that Aziraphale could take his hand back if he liked. He didn’t, and even more than the three squeezes, that made Crowley flush back. “Why weren’t you put here then?”

Aziraphale shrugged, far too nonchalantly for him to mean it, and squeezed his hand back once. “Couldn’t say. Mother works in mysterious ways, depending on who you ask.”

“And if I asked you?” Crowley shot back without missing a beat before wincing to himself. This wasn’t some schoolyard tussle where he was meant to be the wittiest before getting his arse kicked, this was  _ Aziraphale _ . And weren’t you supposed to be nicer or something to the people you liked? Crowley wasn’t sure,  _ nice _ hadn’t ever seemed to come naturally to him.

Aziraphale only sighed in response and trailed a finger down the spines of a few nearby books, right by the doorway they’d barely even stepped through, before letting Crowley’s hand drop. “I suppose it wouldn’t much matter, what I think of my Mother these days.”

He walked further into the room, Cowley watching in silence as he touched each bookshelf and then the obviously dusty coverlet on the bed. There was a pile of books on the bedside table, each with a bookmark halfway through. 

“Couldn’t decide?” Crowley asked before he thought to stop himself. 

Aziraphale looked back to him and then towards the pile. He huffed out a silent, amused breath, “I never can it seems, there’s just so many wonderful things to read.” 

“Can’t relate,” Crowley muttered, but he did so with a smile that Aziraphale returned, so he knew it was alright. 

“Well, I suppose we can go to bed now.” Aziraphale glanced around the room one last time before nodding and crossing back to Crowley. 

“What? Don’t you want to stay here? That’s your bed.” 

Aziraphale shook his head, already moving towards the door. “No, the bed’s not made up and I rather think I’d prefer to be with you.” 

Well. That was that then. 

They made their way back to the guest room and each went to their overnight bags. Crowley unzipped his and then a thought occurred. 

_ Hng.  _

Crowley swallowed nervously and looked towards Aziraphale, who was digging out his own sleepwear from his overnight bag and facing away from him. Right, they’re sleeping in the same room. Not the same bed, obviously, but still. Same room. Hands. Back.  _ Gay _ .

A sound not unlike a dying lizard rasped from Crowley’s throat as he discovered he was suddenly dry and  _ parched _ . No, no, this would be fine, don’t be weird, Crowley, it’s fine. Just two friends, sorta. Maybe more? Two people shaped people, or man shaped people?  _ People! _ Right. 

Just two.

Just the two of them, in a room, alone. And it wasn't like they'd never been alone, in rooms, before. But this was a  _ bed _ room and that somehow made all the difference to Crowley's hindbrain. Crowley cleared his throat and yanked his own bag onto the bed, carefully not looking up at Aziraphale. Digging through it for the joggers he brought, he thanked everything he didn’t completely lose his mind and forget that something to sleep in might be necessary. He’d not packed a shirt, of bloody fucking course, what kind of psychopath sleeps in a top  _ and _ bottoms– hngg, nope,  _ not _ thinking about that! Bad Crowley!

He took a deep breath in and forced himself to take the joggers in hand and stand up fully. 

“I’m, uh, gonn just go–” He muttered, stumbling over his words and his own feet as he pointed at the godforsaken _en suite_ (jesus fuck they have an en suite in an unused guest room) and waved his hand to show off the sleepwear. “Change, yeah. That. Ta!”

The startled laughter coming from the other side of the bathroom door as soon as he shut it firmly behind him made making a fool of himself pretty much worth it. It was… nice, Crowley supposed, to be liked even for his foolishness. He changed quickly, not bothering with pants or a shirt, though the shirt took him a few moments to decide to pull off. But it had been a full day of wearing it and he’d sweated during dinner, so continuing to wear old clothes wouldn’t be a good look. Probably… There was also a small part of him—alright, perhaps a bit more than a small part—that wanted to show off to Aziraphale. Wanted to be seen and admired and feel the heat of his gaze raking across his bare skin and the tattoos on his torso and arms. He knew the art was good, knew it fit his body. More than one lover had enjoyed tracing the inked lines when they were together. 

He paused for a moment to look at himself, and the wild difference between the little hand mirror on the rusted nail in his bathroom at home and this actual full-length mirror that took up nearly the full wall around the sink in this ostentatious bathroom shook him to his core. If Aziraphale grew up like this, what would a  _ shed _ offer he couldn’t already have? How could he think that dressing up and a nice car made up for any of that chasm of difference? 

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and splashed some water on his face. It was fine, it would be fine. Aziraphale liked him. Probably, at least. Liked him enough to be friends and hold hands and that rot. He brushed his teeth quickly and turned to leave the room before stopping short and knocking on the door, feeling foolish all over again.

“Aziraphale? You done?” Crowley tried for nonchalant, though it came out more than a bit reedy. 

“Just need to brush my teeth, dear boy.” Aziraphale’s voice came from much closer than Crowley had expected and he was forced to smother a yelp as he opened the door.

“Right, sorry!” Crowley said with a grimace, stopping short once more as he almost barreled chest-first into Aziraphale. The weight of Aziraphale’s gaze on him felt… he didn’t know what it felt like. A little like being in the sun for so long your skin started to shrink a bit, just enough to notice but not enough to burn, and a little like a heavy cushion filled with beans or rice laid across your shoulders, and a little like hunger waiting to watch him fall. Everything about it should have made him feel less, or at least shouldn’t have been nearly as pleasant as it was, coming from Aziraphale.

And then Aziraphale coughed politely, yanking him back from his thoughts, and his eyes met Crowley’s through his sunglasses, still on despite the late hour in deference to the bright lights, and his heart galloped right out of his chest so quickly he knew for a fact it was long gone. That was alright though, what did he need a heart for when Aziraphale was right there?

“I’ll just...slip past you there, my dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured gently, the fabric of his sleep shirt, an obscenely soft button down flannel, scraping over Crowley’s skin. It felt too much like being on the business end of an electric shock, and he jumped a little to get out of the doorway.

“Ye– yeah, right. Sorry. I’ll just… go to bed, then. Leave the light on at the bedside table?” Crowley spoke mainly to himself as he wandered over to his bag, stowed his day-old clothing and toiletries. He climbed awkwardly into a bed that was too soft, too high up, and far too rich for the likes of him, then flicked on the bedside lamp.

When Aziraphale came back out from the bathroom, Crowey was sure to be arranged casually in his bed. He lay on his stomach and cradled the pillow in his arms, his head twisted to the side so he could watch Aziraphale get into bed.

Aziraphale settled, fluffling his pillow and wiggling into place before laying back and turning to smile at Crowley. Then, he reached over and turned off the light, and suddenly all there was in the world was them and this room. They were lying, Aziraphale and his back and Crowley on his stomach, with their faces turned toward one another, even in the dark. It was all Crowley wanted in the world to meet Aziraphale’s gaze in the darkness and never look away... and at the same time to not look, to not be seen. But to simply slip into sleep with the sound of Aziraphale’s breathing in his ears.

Aziraphale had been able to reach the light with ease. There was only room for the table in between the beds, and that was practically nothing, Crowley thought. He could reach over without stretching at all and hold Aziraphale’s hand if he wanted to, and he wanted to, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Wasn’t sure if it would be too much too fast, because he did go too fast. He’d been told it time and time again; he drove too fast, he never slowed down to appreciate just how good he had it, he’d regret rocketing off the way he did. He’d heard it all. And he very, very much didn’t want to go too fast for Aziraphale, but it was like his heart was off so far ahead of him; like his heart was a spooked and running horse, and Crowley getting dragged along with his foot in the stirrup, helpless to do anything but pray.

Aziraphale looked like a statue in the moonlight, he thought just as he drifted off. 

Maybe Pygmalion had the right of it after all. 

Then he was gone. 

<hr>

_ He walks up the long lane, around the hill, past the rocks where he and Uriel had carved their names when they were small. He can still feel the chalk beneath his fingers, crumbled to powder by the silver knives they’d borrowed from the kitchen. Their mother had been furious and then she’d found it hilarious, laughing and wrapping them each in a tight hug before telling them very sternly they were grounded until they could come up with a way to tell their Grandmother they’d used her wedding silver for amateur sculpting.  _

_ He smiles at the memory.  _

_ Continues on.  _

_ As he approaches the Manor the clouds clear away, revealing a perfect blue sky. Summer days had always been perfect here. Distantly, he thinks he can hear Michael and Gabriel yelling at each other, their childish voices pitchy and carrying in the way only the very young can manage. But, when he looks around he realizes he must have been mistaken. The grounds are very clearly modern, unmolested by the feet of children for the last twenty-five years.  _

_ He opens the front door and immediately sees Mother and Father, locked in a serious discussion as they cross from the parlour to Mother’s office.  _

_ “Mother!” He greets, excited, for reasons he cannot identify, to see her. It feels as if it’s been years, decades, and perhaps it has. He’s not seen her smile directly at him with intent in so long. She doesn’t look away from Father. “Father?” He tries, stepping across the entryway. “Dad?” _

_ Father doesn’t respond either.  _

_ Then, they’re gone, locked away in the office, nothing more than murmured arguments and expectations.  _

_ He searches the entire ground floor, but doesn’t find another living soul. On the first floor he tries to talk to Uriel. She’s in her room, caught up in painting something he can’t quite identify, but when he asks she doesn’t look up. She’s always been so creative, he thinks, I shouldn’t interrupt her. That’s not very polite.  _

_ So, he wishes her well and moves on.  _

_ Each person he meets he tries to speak to and each time he finds himself ignored, not even a twitch to indicate he was heard.  _

_ Finally he comes to his bedroom.  _

_ He pushes the door open and steps through. It swings shut behind him with a quiet click.  _

_ He goes to the closest bookshelf. He’d not been terribly lonely as a child, still close enough with his siblings to play and run with them. But these had been his only friends as a teen. He reaches out and brushes one finger down the spine of Treasure Island, only to jerk back in horror when the leather crumbles to nothing beneath his touch.  _

_ He watches, bile rising in his throat, as the dust spreads and every book it touches begins to fall apart.  _

_ “No no no no,” he chants, reaching out and trying desperately to hold onto one of them. Just one.  _

_ He’d be happy with that.  _

_ But, Treasure Island is long gone and the Tale of Genji is gritty in his hands when he reaches it and his complete works of Wilde is, is, is.... _

_ Isn’t.  _

_ None of them Are anymore.  _

_ “No,” he cries, turning away from the shelves, unable to look at the damage he’d wrought. If he’d not touched, they’d still be here. Perhaps whatever was wrong with him wouldn’t be wrong next time he visited, if only he’d been less selfish he’d have that chance.  _

_ A sob wants to punch its way out of him, but it’s stopped by the sight before him.  _

_ His bed is where it had been since he was small. The covers rumpled and tossed to the side. The perfect, clear summer sun falling across it in a perfect, clear shaft of light, illuminating the body in the bed.  _

_ Crowley is there.  _

_ In his bed.  _

_ Naked.  _

_ He’s sprawled out, relaxed and clearly basking in the sunshine. His hair is spread across the silk pillowcase and his left arm is raised, crooked in a mirror of his right leg. His shoulders are strong and Aziraphale’s fingers twitch with the urge to trace every spot of ink on him, the riotous shapes of flowers and bright greenery tattooed down his right arm, the tangled grey brambles on his left. To kiss each of his calloused fingertips.  _

_ His eyes are drawn back up to the snake curling over Crowley's shoulders; the head of it covering his heart, and the long body looping across his back to curve sensually back up to his hip. Aziraphale devours the lines of his torso, the narrow cut of his pelvis only emphasized by the thick coil of the snake tattoo that arcs over one hip.  _

_ His eyes travel lower, lower, seeking out everything. He’s ravenous.  _

_ He wants to know the feel of that skin. Beneath his hands, his lips, his own flesh.  _

_ He swallows.  _

_ Crowley shifts, a tiny smile curling his lips and Aziraphale is suddenly sure that if anyone can hear him it will be Crowley.  _

_ “Crowley?” he breathes, stepping forward.  _

_ But, when he tries to take another step, he trips on something unseen and tilts forward, unable to stop himself. His thighs hit the edge of the bed first, then his flailing hand lands on Crowley’s ribcage and instead of warm skin all he can feel is bone and ash as Crowley goes the way of his books, the desiccation eating its way outward from Aziraphale’s cursed fingers.  _

_ When he breathes in to cry out, the ash fills his mouth and he can’t can’t can’t can’t– _

<hr>

Crowley woke to quiet whimpers and rustling. He cracked his eyes open, fumbling about on the bedside table for his mobile. He gave it up as a bad job when the noises finally coalesced in his mind. 

Aziraphale. 

He was out of his bed and leaning over Aziraphale before he even realized he’d moved. The other man twisted, the bare edge of his form visibly tense even in the dim moonlight that filtered through the curtains. 

“Aziraphale,” he whispered. “You okay?” Aziraphale moaned. It wasn’t the sort of moan Crowley liked the people he slept beside to make. 

“Azira– oh sod it,” Crowley crawled into the bed, angling himself to land just beside Aziraphale. He hesitated for a bare fifteen seconds before reaching out and gently shaking Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale jerked awake with a strangled cry, grappling with the sheets wrapped around him and batting at Crowley’s hands as he tried to sit up, until Crowley’s quiet repetitions of his name seemed to reach him. 

Then, quite suddenly, Crowley found himself wrapped tightly in Aziraphale’s arms. The other man was shaking and Crowley could do nothing but continue to murmur nonsense and return the hug. 

“You’re okay, it’s all okay, it was just a dream,” Crowley told the top of Aziraphale’s head, “Only a dream. I’ve got you.” 

Eventually, Aziraphale’s breathing slowed and the shaking subsided. He did not let go of Crowley as he said, “I’m sorry about that. I’ll, uh, I’ll let you go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to–”

Crowley looked around the sterile guest room as Aziraphale spoke and suddenly all he could think was, “Fuck that.” 

“What?” Crowley winced. Well, at least Aziraphale sounded startled rather than offended. 

“Sorry, no, I didn’t mean you, I meant this.” He gestured to the room around them, devoid of anything at all that might comfort Aziraphale. 

“I don’t understand,” Aziraphale mumbled. 

Crowley chuffed a laugh and stood, pausing only long enough to shake out his stiff hip before pulling Aziraphale after him. 

“Wha–?” Aziraphale scrubbed at his face with a shaking hand and Crowley reflected once more on how completely and utterly gone on Aziraphale he was. 

“Shh.” He held one finger up to his lips at the doorway, giving Aziraphale a toothy grin. 

<hr>

Aziraphale had always loved the story of Euridice and Orpheus. He’d liked the way tension built and built and then just when you thought the hero had succeeded it was all ripped away from him. He was forcibly reminded of the long walk through the dark of the Underworld as Crowley led him through the halls of his childhood home. 

But it wasn’t quite right. 

He wasn’t meant to be the one being led. The dream lingered, causing him to grip at Crowley’s hand tighter, needing the reassurance of its solidity. 

Crowley was the one who was going to crumble away, not Aziraphale. Aziraphale would be left here, alone and afraid and so guilty. 

Eurydice wasn’t meant to outlive Orpheus. 

The borders of reality and dream blurred and he could almost feel Crowley disappearing even as he tried to grip tighter. He’d had that dream before. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. But, Crowley was a new addition to it, and he couldn’t shake the terror. 

What if it was his subconscious trying to tell him something? What if he was hurting Crowley somehow and he was too stubborn to see it, too selfish? He’d killed him in the dream by wanting to touch him. Was he going to kill Crowley in the waking world too? 

Orpheus had looked back at Eurydice and when they reached the destination Crowley had in mind, so too did Crowley. His teeth were once more a bright flash in the dark. He pushed the door in front of him open and Aziraphale realized he’d been brought to his childhood bedroom. 

He was filled with the sudden, overwhelming need to know that his touch wasn’t going to hurt Crowley. He surged forward, taking up Crowley’s other hand and pressing him back against the closest bookcase. If he angled just right he could– There! His elbow brushed against the books (the real, solid books that stayed real and solid when he touched them) and still felt Crowley’s skin against his palm. 

“Azira?” Crowley’s breath still smelled vaguely of mint when it hit Aziraphale’s face and he pressed closer, slotting their bodies together. Crowley wasn’t wearing a shirt and Aziraphale could feel his ribcage expanding with each intake of air, skin over bone and muscle. He was so very here, so present and real. Each expansion and retraction settled Aziraphale just that much more until the tension which had been holding up upright finally fled and he nearly collapsed against Crowley. 

“Woah, woah.” Crowley moved so he was hugging Aziraphale, half holding him up. Aziraphale shuddered, suddenly aware of just how cold the house was. 

Crowley snorted. 

“Stay here,” he said, gently sliding out of Aziraphale’s grip. 

“What?” But Crowley was already gone. Aziraphale wrapped his arms around himself. The room was all too dark and the fears wanted to creep back in. He shifted so his elbow was touching the books again, worried that his hands or his fingers might cause them to decay this time, but unable to keep from touching them to reassure himself of their presence. 

Before he could do much more than that, Crowley reappeared, weighed down by the quilts and sheets from the beds in the guest room. Aziraphale blinked, curious, but in that distant, exhausted way that could only happen in the middle of the night. 

He opened his mouth to ask, but what came out instead was, “I always wanted to have a sleepover, but Mother never let us.” 

Crowley hefted the blankets. His hair was a wild tangle, half loose from the braid he’d worn since that morning and his smile was broad. Aziraphale was hopelessly besotted. 

“Okay, my life is sad, but even I had sleepovers,” the blankets moved as he tried and failed to gesture. He scowled, tilted back on the bed, nearly overbalancing entirely before the blankets shifted enough for him to reveal one hand, which he pointed at Aziraphale. “Stand there and don’t do anything. I’m building us a nest.” 

Aziraphale watched through bleary eyes as Crowley quickly used each blanket in turn to construct a sort of nest atop Aziraphale’s bed. He was... really quite good at that, Aziraphale realized. Why was Crowley so good at blanket nests? When was that a skill that one learned? 

When the nest looked mostly finished Aziraphale approached and poked at it, impressed by not only the speed but the structural integrity. He canted his head to the side, trying to determine how the folds worked to make it so strong, but before he could figure anything out, Crowley took his hand once more and pulled him down into the center of the nest. 

Oh. 

_ Oh.  _

Well, then. It really was rather nice. The space in the center was smaller than it had appeared, but there was a sense of security in being surrounded on all sides by blanket walls and the size meant they were obliged to press close. 

Crowley wriggled, settling himself deeper into the center. He tugged Aziraphale’s arm up and lay his head on it, pinning Aziraphale in place and locking the last of his nerves away. The peace of the night slowly stole back into the space around them. 

“Did you really sleep like this for sleepovers?” Aziraphale murmured into the dark. His eyes kept slipping closed. 

Crowley made an unintelligible noise and Aziraphale could not stop the giggle that escaped. 

“Ah, yes. Hronafase.” 

“Ass,” Crowley muttered. He twisted again, turning so his back was pressed to Aziraphale’s side, his face on Aziraphale’s arm. He could just feel Crowey’s fingertips brushing the underside of his arm, a tentative stroke back and forth. “I meant no, I didn’t  _ like  _ anyone like that.” 

That made Aziraphale unaccountably sad. “You didn’t like your friends?” 

Crowley’s nail scraped lightly along Aziraphale’s arm. “Of course I liked my friends?” 

Aziraphale was too tired for this. “But you just said you didn’t?”

Crowley huffed a laugh. “No, like,  _ like  _ like... Oh hell, I can’t believe I just said that.” 

Aziraphale was a bit lost. He worked his way back through the conversation, trying to find where he’d gotten–

“Oh. Oh! Oh, my dear.” He turned onto his side so that Crowley was still able to use his arm as a pillow, but his back was now pressed against Aziraphale’s chest. 

“Shut up,” Crowley groused, “Right now!” 

Aziraphale grinned, ducking his head down so the smile was hidden in Crowley’s hair. 

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You were thinking it!” 

“Of course, dear.” Because Crowley wasn’t wrong, he  _ was _ thinking about how very much he like-liked Crowley. He scooted closer, daring to lay the arm not currently being used as a pillow across Crowley, pulling him back and tucking his legs up into the crook of Crowley’s so there wasn’t a scrap of air between them. He felt Crowley’s muscles tense and then relax into the hold. 

“Night, ‘ziraphale,” Crowley murmured. 

“Good night, Crowley.” 

Sleep began to draw him under once more and this time he did not try to resist. Crowley was pressed against every inch of his front, a blaze of life, banked to embers by his exhaustion and it was suddenly hard to find his old fear. How could he worry about waking alone or watching the things, the people, he loved crumble to ash when Crowley was so very  _ present _ ? 

He held Crowley a bit tighter, basking in the indulgence. Crowley made a sleepy sort of noise that fell halfway between a moan and a grumble and something very large was swelling in Aziraphale’s chest. He breathed in deep, taking in the new-growth and sunshine scent that clung to Crowley’s hair. 

Crowley shifted, turning his head slightly so his lips just brushed the pulsepoint of Aziraphale’s left wrist. Aziraphale stopped breathing as Crowley tilted forward and pressed what could only be a kiss to the delicate skin. Warm lips parted just enough for Aziraphale to feel the damp of his mouth, cooled by the slow stream of air exhaled through his nose and Crowley  _ wasn’t pulling away.  _

The feeling in his chest made a rapid left turn towards a word Aziraphale had never before thought about another person when he realized Crowley had fallen asleep kissing him. 

_ Oh,  _ he thought,  _ oh dear.  _

He fell asleep memorizing the feeling of Crowley’s lips on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Notes:  
> Arrival to the manor from "Crowley nodded, filing that away as the lane began to curve gently around the base of a hill. " to "They made their way back to the guest room and each went to their overnight bags."  
> "If you skipped after the arrival to the manor: Aziraphale and Crowley arrive to Fell manor, on the way Aziraphale mentions to Crowley that his parents are separated and he hadn't been told about it until the rest of the public was. They are escorted to a shared guest room rather than having Aziraphale's room made ready for him. Once again Aziraphale is not recognized by any of the servants by name or face (same as 6 years ago) except for Brother Francis, who has been in service as a gardener since Aziraphale was young.
> 
> The two of them sit through dinner with Aziraphale's family, sans his father, it is quiet and no one speaks until Aziraphale clears his throat and accidentally puts himself on the spot. He attempts to talk about his thesis and his work but is shut down and mocked by Gabriel, though Crowley defends him verbally. Michael then turns the conversation away. 
> 
> Mother (Abeline) asks Crowley what he does, Crowley replies tersely "I garden," and Mother is delighted about it, albeit distantly. After dinner Aziraphale leads Crowley away and visits his old room. The room itself isn't particularly dusty and Crowley mistakes it for another library, but it is obviously unused and not aired for their visit, and Aziraphale's bed is covered with furniture cloth rather than bedsheets.
> 
> dream skipping: "Then he was gone. " to "Finally he comes to his bedroom."  
> If you skipped further past the dream: Aziraphale dreams that he is younger and growing up at the manor. At first it is about him and Uriel carving their names into rocks with their grandmother's silverware. They are caught by their mother who is present and is only upset at first. He can hear Michael and Gabriel laughing childishly in the distance. 
> 
> The scene changes to a scene close to 6 years ago, when he comes to the manor. His mother and father are speaking seriously in the parlor. He attempts to greet them but they do not answer him, ignoring his presence entirely, or not seeing him. They're gone in the next moment, behind closed office doors. 
> 
> Aziraphale then finds Uriel and thinks of her fondly. She also ignores or doesn't see him at all, and he doesn't want to interrupt her from her painting so he stops trying. He continues to his childhood bedroom."


	13. Of Critical Mass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi folks! We're still visiting Azirphale's family, but we think this chapter's quite a bit less intense on that front than the last one. The only warnings this time are for panic attacks and an for a oblique reference to the "lose the gut line" (if you'd like to skip this portion; it begins with the words "Crowley scowled." and ends with "“Hm, no time for that anyway"). 
> 
> A massive thank you to [Lurlur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurlur/pseuds/Lurlur) for britpicking, [sosobriquet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sosobriquet/pseuds/sosobriquet) for the incredibly speedy betawork, and [Awenna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awenna/pseuds/Awenna) for keeping us on the Catholic straight and narrow

The first thing that greeted Aziraphale was bright, early morning sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains. It felt a bit like he was still dreaming, he thought as he watched the bright sparks of dust dance in the light. If he was, it was a much better one than last night, which had been anxiety-inducing and nerve wracking. This felt a lot like serenity.

 _It could be_ , Aziraphale mused to himself, still half asleep and as comfortable as he could be wrapped in blankets and curled around a heat source, _that I’ve died in my sleep and this is heaven, maybe. An eternal peace sounds about right_.

He slowly grew more aware of his surreal surroundings, details coming to him in increments. Blankets wrapped around his back and were visible everywhere he looked. There were even a few piled haphazardly on top of them, a riot of wrinkles unfit for such expensive sheets. Crowley’s back was against his chest, flush to him so that he could feel the heat of the man’s bare torso through his thin night-shirt, and his arms were wrapped around Crowley in a singularly exquisite embrace.

Aziraphale almost felt like he could float, as light and happy as he was just then. He tightened his arms around Crowley and curved his back to curl closer against him, pressing the tip of his nose into the riot of hair that had fallen messily out of Crowley’s low ponytail in the night. At the touch Crowley stirred with a low groan and shifted in Aziraphale’s arms. He hummed and Aziraphale’s sleepy smile grew to match the one he could just picture gracing Crowley’s face, before he even opened his eyes.

Crowley reached out, still clumsy with sleep, and slid his hand along the back of Aziraphale's, cradling it in his palm as if it were something precious. His long fingers slipped into the gaps between Aziraphale’s, filling all the places Aziraphale had never realized were empty before that moment. Then, Crowley pulled their entangled hands close and pressed a soft, deliberate kiss to Aziraphale’s palm. The breath arrested in his lungs and his heart skittered about like a mayfly in June behind his ribs. A second kiss was placed—just as deliberately—on his wrist. Over the _very_ first one from last night. Luckily Aziraphale was already laying down, his free hand gripping Crowley’s side and clutching him tight to his chest for stability; otherwise he might have swooned.

 _This is why we make connections with other people,_ Aziraphale thought to himself, suddenly feeling a little like his soul was peeking out from behind his lips with the urge to put everything into words, the need to spell out this feeling with his mouth on Crowley’s. _In the hopes to be here someday, to have_ this _, and rest in understanding._

Crowley made a noise in his chest that vibrated against Aziraphale’s sternum before turning onto his back, twisting in Aziraphale’s grip to face him, and slung his legs around so they rested atop Airaphale’s curved knees. Their breaths mingled in the air. Easier than air with air, it felt like their spirits were embracing and Aziraphale caught himself murmuring lines from Milton, “In eminence, and obstacle find none. Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars.”

“Yeah?” Crowley purred, leaning in with a soft smile, little more than a quirk of his lips, which Aziraphale was distinctly aware of as he stared at them. Crowley’s hand cupped Aziraphale’s jaw and cheek in a way that felt like the last piece being slotted into place and completing the puzzle.

“Y– yes.” That was all Aziraphale had the breath for, when that singular word punched all the air from his lungs. Simultaneously, Aziraphale felt like he was shaking apart with nerves and the feeling of _finally_ —like he’d burst from his own chest fully formed and someone else entirely. Someone that could melt and fit against Crowley perfectly. That could convey his satisfaction without having to speak; searching for the words and tripping over his tongue. He felt so still, he thought the mountain might move long before him.

“Aziraphale!” Michael’s stern voice carried like a cathedral bell, echoing in the hollows of the room. Crowley’s squawk followed in kind as he jumped from Aziraphale’s arms with a look of utter surprised terror on his face, and fell off the bed face first.

“Michael.” Aziraphale greeted coolly without lifting his head from his pillow, sounding far more put together than he felt.

She raised an eyebrow at her youngest brother, glanced meaningfully at Crowley’s Escheresque form, and then returned her gaze to lock eyes with Aziraphale. “Wasting your time in bed with your partner ten minutes before we leave for Mass certainly isn’t a good look for either of you, little brother.”

A sudden fear gripped Aziraphale’s chest. Ten minutes? Ten minutes was barely enough to get ready let alone hope there was any breakfast, and if the staff didn’t recognize him or even think of him fondly there _certainly_ wouldn’t be any emergency toast to attempt to tide them over for a long Mass. Aziraphale’s mouth pulled into a thin-lipped grimace. The family might not eat today, but the majority of the staff was not Catholic and did not observe the Ash Wednesday fast, he’d hoped to be awake early enough that there might be something for Crowley to eat.

He ran a hand through his hair, already knowing there was no taming his curls without a mirror—the natural look would just have to do.

Michael sighed, “I’ll try to delay Mother. Don’t be longer than fifteen minutes. I will _not_ be late to mass because _you_ couldn’t control your canoodling.” There was something beneath her voice that Aziraphale could not identify, but his thoughts had already raced ahead to planning his abbreviated morning routine, so he set it aside.

“Of course,” he managed to tell Michael. “We’ll be in the carport in fifteen minutes.” Perhaps that was enough time for the cook to find something small for Crowley? Oh, Aziraphale did so hate the idea of Crowley going hungry because of him.

The door clicked closed and silence once more descended upon them. Aziraphale rubbed his eyes with the hand Crowley had so recently been holding, then left the hand covering his eyes, desperate to hold on to even a scrap of the peace he’d so recently enjoyed. After a long moment he heard Crowley shifting on the floor.

“Well, that certainly was a thing,” Crowley grumbled. Aziraphale gave up on lounging and shifted so he could peer over the far side of the bed at where Crowley lay sprawled on the floor.

“You know, my dear, it really is unfair that you look so very handsome after having just fallen out of my bed.”

A slow smile spread across Crowley’s face, its intensity only matched by his deep red blush. Aziraphale returned it with a grin of his own, pleased by how much a simple compliment affected Crowley. He thought he could grow used to that sort of power—the ability to fluster the person he liked most in the world was intoxicating.

“As much as I would like to return to where we were,” Aziraphale’s wrist burned at the memory, “perhaps we should prepare for Mass?”

“Hnguhfsh,” Crowley declared. But, he dragged himself to his feet and held out a hand to help Aziraphale up—and so Aziraphale figured they were alright.

(Crowley’s fingers lingered in his own, and brushed across the base of his spine when they finally had to separate in the guest room.)

(Yeah. Perfectly alright.)

* * *

Crowley could not remember a time when he’d slept better or woke feeling more rested. Sure, the wildly, inappropriately expensive sheets _might_ have had something to do with that. Or that the bed had felt like being cradled by the most decadent of clouds. But, he rather thought those things had nothing to do with it at all.

No, he figured he could put his strange excess of energy and good mood down to the way he awoke, wrapped in Aziraphale’s arms and held tight to his chest, the length of him pressed against every inch of Crowley’s back and legs. He could still feel the gentle warmth of him as they got dressed for the day—Crowley threw on a thick charcoal jumper to abate the ambient wintertime chill—and walked down to greet Aziraphale’s family. It almost felt like he was being supported, held up by Aziraphale’s regard. It gave him the strength to smirk at Gabriel and ignore the way neither Uriel nor their mum looked up when they entered the room. It also encouraged him to take Aziraphale’s hand and hold it tightly when Michael rolled her eyes at them entering together.

“Good morning.” He did not say it as a greeting. It was a challenge, daring them to continue to ignore and belittle.

Aziraphale’s hand tightened convulsively in his, but he did not scold Crowley or pull away.

“Nice of you two to join us,” Gabriel sniffed into his cuppa. “We’ve only been waiting a half hour.”

Crowley scowled. That was an outright lie and he knew it even without knowing Gabriel for more than a day. He opened his mouth to say as much, but Aziraphale was already speaking.

“So sorry about that,” he said and fuck if he didn’t actually sound upset to have ‘inconvienced’ them all.

Crowley checked the clock on the mantelpiece, just to be sure he’d not misread the one in the guest room, but no, they were a minute early even.

“Is there perhaps a bit of toast before we go?” Aziraphale asked when it seemed no one else was about to speak.

Gabriel snorted, “You know it's a fasting day, Az. Besides, do you really need it? Looks like you could use a few more fasts if you ask me.”

There was a distant ringing in Crowley’s ears. He could not _believe_ what–

But, then, Aziraphale was chuckling and saying, his voice overly bright, “Not for me of course. For Crowley. He’s not catholic and it seems unfair to make him go hungry.”

No, Crowley wanted to snap out, no no no no. That was not the issue here. He’d gone hungry before and he was absolutely positive he would again. Missing one meal would not hurt him in the slightest. The thing that made him want to do, well, incredibly detailed and violent things to Gabriel was the way Aziraphale had just brushed past the insult, as if it was standard and expected.

“Hm, no time for that anyway,” Gabriel said, glancing towards the door. “Francis brought the car around ages ago and we’re going to be late. Your _friend_ can eat tonight with the rest of us.”

Crowley watched as first Gabriel and then the rest of Aziraphale’s family made their way outside. As soon as they were alone once more he spoke.

“You know that’s not true, right? I need to know you know it’s a lie and that your brother is a giant bag of dicks?”

“Oh, no need for all that fuss,” Aziraphale laughed. “That’s just how Gabriel is. He’s always been like that.”

That… that wasn’t better. Crowley’s chest ached viciously for the young Aziraphale he could just barely picture, little and ashamed because his big brother kept making comments about how round his face was or how soft his hands were.

Crowley loved the curve of Aziraphale’s cheek, the gentle weight of his hand. He had never before wanted to punch anyone as badly as he did in that moment.

But, there was no time for all that just then, there was only time to lift Aziraphale’s hand and kiss his palm once more and say, “He’s wrong, no matter if it's a joke. You’re beautiful.”

And Aziraphale blinked at him, the tension Crowley hadn’t even noticed in his shoulders slowly slipping away.

“Come along,” he said after a bit, “Let’s not make everyone later than we already are.”

“We can take my car, right?” Crowley asked, forcing his tone casual.

“If you like. I can’t say I’d be upset at the thought of not sharing a car with my siblings…”

* * *

It dawned on Crowley, as they entered the church, that he’d never been inside one before. When he was younger and first living on his own he’d avoided the church-run shelters and kitchens like the plague, afraid that he’d not be able to look or act ‘normally’ enough for them. Of course, he knew differently now, knew there were plenty of people like him who worked in those places, one of the best of them sat beside him now, holding his hand and mouthing along with the prayers. But, he’d discovered as they crossed under the lintel that the old fear was still there.

He watched as Aziraphale and his family each approached the holy water font and crossed themselves in turn. A wild thought drifted across his mind, the idea that if he were to follow suit he would burn down to nothingness. He'd thought it before when they arrived at the too-white, too-bright Fell Manor that was too-empty, and clinical besides, but this felt different. Before it felt like not being worthy, of being worried to mar the place with the darkness of his chosen clothing or the filth ground underneath his fingernails; but here felt like something else entirely. Like the ground underneath him might open up and bare sharp teeth made to swallow him down into Hell. Just for thinking of setting foot in a place like this, a place he didn’t believe in, was scared of, and abhorred a little, even. The urge to run, to book it out of the church welled up in him and settled in his feet like blistering sand turning his leg restless.

But, before he could step away or refuse, Aziraphale was turning to him and placing damp fingers first to his forehead, then his sternum, then his shoulders—first the left, then the right. Crowley blinked at him, startled and touched, feeling as if he’d just been blessed in a way that was very much not the traditional intent.

“Aziraphale.” The word escaped against his will, but he had nothing to follow it with, and so he said nothing further.

They passed from the entryway into the main part of the church—cathedral? Chapel? He really wasn’t sure which was the right word here—they were attending the first service of the day so Crowley had expected that there would be a fairly small number of people attending. He realized that was not the case. as soon as they entered the larger space. He felt assaulted by the wall of noise, the people milling about as they chatted and laughed. They all _fit_ in a way that Crowley couldn’t quite define. He watched as Aziraphale’s family moved ahead of them, slipping into the crowd and _fitting in_ that same way.

Then, he looked at Aziraphale and wondered if he’d fit in the same way, were he not at Crowley’s side. No one approached them, nor did Aziraphale do more than smile and nod to those whose eyes he caught. Instead he took Crowley on a slow circuit of the space, pausing below each stained glass window and pointing out all the little bits he loved. There was the bright red of the apple that showed up again and again, the delicate leaded lines drawn across the creams and golds, highlighting the curve of a wing or the glory of a halo. The last window he brought them to featured a massive snake in dark greys and reds, it had legs, though they appeared to have collapsed under its weight, unable to hold the beast. Crowley’s hip twinged in sympathy, the memory of the last time he’d stood too quickly and fallen back to the ground stealing over him.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s the serpent of eden,” Aziraphale said. He got such a specific tone of voice when he was explaining something, Crowley didn’t often get to hear it because he was the one in the teaching role during their meetings, but he adored it. “They were maybe Lucifer, or Satan, or perhaps their own person; it’s not quite clear. I’ve always enjoyed this window, though. They are so strong, even as God takes their legs from them, defiant to the last.”

Crowley’s chest was suddenly over-tight, his breath wanting to catch and tear. He forced the feeling back, unsure why he was reacting like this. It made no sense. He gathered up all the weird and wobbly emotions and balled them up, shoving them somewhere just to the left of his body where they couldn’t bother him. The stained glass was nothing more than a particularly artistic take on Junior, worked in glass. He ignored the way his lower back felt fatigued already, and ignored the fact that it was likely due to too-soft mattresses even if he’d slept like a dream.

There was some unspoken, invisible sign to the people around them and they began to move to the pews, aligning themselves in neat little rows. Aziraphale turned away from the Serpent and pulled Crowley along with him. The Fell family pew was already quite full, so they settled at the very edge; Crowley on the outside and Aziraphale beside Michael, who did not look up from the bible open in her lap.

The service began.

“In the course of today's Mass, ashes are blessed and distributed,” the priest’s voice had a sort of melodic cant to it, moving up and down the phrases and Crowley was sure that he’d said those exact words dozens of times before. “These are made from the palms blessed the previous year.”

He went on, saying something in Latin and then speaking about fasting and the trials that the faith of the parishioners was meant to help them through. Crowley’s eyes kept drifting back to the stained glass depiction of the serpent. As the service proceeded the light outside shifted, lighting the paler glasses like fire and surrounding the serpent in flickering flames. Crowley liked the way it looked, the prostrated serpent with its head stretched towards Heaven and disdain for those who hurt it on its face.

He blinked and the priest was saying something in Latin again, only this time Aziraphale and everyone else in the congregation responded in one voice.

“Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.”

Crowley shuddered. It wasn’t that he disliked religion, hell ( _ha_ ) he was coming around on it through knowing that someone as _good_ as Aziraphale could find worth in it. But he’d spent so much of his life feeling like an outsider, feeling like he was only looking in on the things he wasn’t meant to have, that there was no way to avoid feeling Other. Not when he was surrounded by dozens of people who knew how they should act and what to say, who shared something that he suddenly felt very isolated from.

It hurt. Surprisingly badly. There was a space inside him that was wide and gaping in ways he was intimately familiar with. It turned his insides into planets and celestial objects that orbited his all-too-human heart, and were forever being pulled apart at light speeds by the ever-expanding grip of the void around it. He felt torn apart by the nothingness, crushed together underneath skin that felt too much like a permeable membrane that would spill the whole of him out, consciousness and all. Unable to be sucked back into himself, if he were to let it go.

He reached over and took Aziraphale’s hand, gripping far more tightly than he normally might. A tether, to keep him from falling adrift into the endlessly hungry void.

“Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” The priest’s voice sounded so small compared to the many-throated response of the people around him.

“Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.”

Crowley lost a bit of time trying to control his breathing and his racing heart, to memorizing the way Aziraphale matched Crowley’s grip with his own. He felt an entire lifetime and yet only seconds had passed when the priest stepped to the side and joined his hands, saying “Dear brethren, let us humbly ask God our Father that he be pleased to bless with the abundance of his grace these ashes, which we will put on our heads in penitence.” Silence fell, nearly as deafening as the full throated repetitions had been. And then he spoke again, continuing to work his way through the prayer, until finally the entire space echoed with, “Amen.”

The priest sprinkled the ashes before him with holy water, then Aziraphale and the rest of his family were standing.

“You can stay here,” Aziraphale told Crowley, “I’ll be back in a bit.” But Crowley didn’t want to stay seated and watch everyone else moving together. He didn’t want to be different in yet another way. So, he shook his head and stood as well, grimacing at the needles shooting from his spine down the back of his thigh. They subsided after a few seconds, it was fine. Just sat for too long in one position on a hard pew. It’d be fine.

“I want to come,” he told Aziraphale, “If it’s okay?” Aziraphale smiled at him, nodding as they began moving along the pew.

“You don't have to accept them if you don't want to,” Aziraphale whispered. “I won’t be upset and the priest won’t mind. It’s meant to be something you want and believe in.”

“Do you believe in it?” Crowley asked, quite without meaning to. “I mean– of course y’don’t need to answer that, I’m sorry. What a stupid question to ask. _Do you believe in it?_ Ugh. Stupid.”

Aziraphale’s fingers tightened around his own, drawing him from his bitter thoughts. “It’s alright, Crowley. You know I lo– _enjoy_ your questions. They make me think and I like that.” They moved out of their pew and into the center aisle. “Yes, I do think I believe in it. Does that bother you?”

Crowley shook his head. How could he ever be bothered by Aziraphale having something to believe in?

“Does it bother you that I don't?”

Aziraphale’s smile _hurt_.

“Of course not, my dear,” his voice dropped even lower as they approached the priest. “I would be rather hypocritical of me if it did, wouldn’t it? I like you just fine exactly how you are. And that means liking your questions and beliefs, whether they’re the same as mine, or if you have none at all. We don’t have to be the same.”

Crowley couldn’t stand to look at Aziraphale any more. There was too much in his throat. They reached the priest and he watched from the corner of his eye as Aziraphale approached, looking up at the priest with a little smile and a quirk of his brow.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Then, he drew his thumb across Aziraphale’s head in a smudged cross. Aziraphale bowed his head and murmured something Crowley could not hear and then the priest and Aziraphale were looking at Crowley.

For a second he thought about stepping forward, thought about how it would feel to have that thumb swipe across his skin and how those words would hit his chest and he… He couldn’t do it. He shook his head, taking one step back. His hip knocked against the edge of the closest pew, an unexpected, sharp spike of pain that set his nerves alight. With a bitten-off cry he collapsed to his knees, clutching at his side.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale was there before Crowley could recover any semblance of composure, his hands hot against Crowley’s skin where his shirt had ridden up. Past Aziraphale, Crowley could see what felt like every eye in the congregation looking at them.

“Are you alright, son?” That was the priest, he’d stepped down from his perch to peer at Crowley, a concerned little wrinkle between his brows.

Crowley opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strangled sort of groan as Aziraphale lifted him to his feet.

“He’s fine,” Aziraphale said. “Thank you, we’ll let you get back to–” He indicated the waiting line. Then, with his hand under Crowley’s elbow he led them back to their spot in the Fell family pew.

“Are you really okay?” Aziraphale fretted as soon as they were once more seated.

He wasn’t. His hip ached fiercely and he could see how all the people in line were glancing at them. This church might not care that Aziraphale was gay (he’d seen the tiny rainbow flag on the "all are welcome here" bulletin, after all). But Crowley’s stupid panic at the idea of _holy_ _ashes,_ of all things, had stolen Aziraphale's chance to decide things on his own terms. Crowley had just essentially yanked him by the collar from whatever closet he might have found comfort in.

What if Aziraphale was mad? What if he regretted asking Crowley to come along? The quiet murmurs of people in line and the lifted voices of the choir suddenly seemed accusatory.

He didn’t want to be here.

Crowley held Aziraphale’s hand tight and fidgeted from side to side, looking around at everyone else who seemed to know just what to do and looked perfectly like they belonged. He was a stark contrast, a blotchy stain of tarry black against the lighter colors the majority of the congregation wore. And yet he was desperately afraid of making Aziraphale’s worries _worse_ if he tried to steal away from their seats with him.

Every scenario he imagined—no matter how subtle he tried to be, or how quickly he got them out of there—he could only imagine how sharp every eye on them would feel. Worse; he didn’t have to imagine how it would feel; because he knew and he couldn’t take it again, not so soon. His hip throbbed, and his hand shook in Aziraphale’s, and he knew he couldn’t stay here. He breathed in and started to count.

 _One_. He squeezed Aziraphale’s hand. _Two._

_Three._

_Four. Five. Six_. Deep breath, don’t pay attention to how it trembles.

 _Seven. Eight_. Breath in again you idiot, you’re no use at all if you don’t _breathe_.

_Nine. Ten. Eleven Twelve._

_Thirteen._

_Fourteen_. Crowley couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe and he might be veering straight towards panic.

 _Fifteen_. His hand was white knuckled over Aziraphale’s and he stood on the precipice of _Sixteen_ , the hiss of the first syllable echoing through his head even as he breathed out through his teeth and stood in a fluid motion as he forced the rest of the word to completion.

_Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen– twenty– twentyone twentytwo twentythree twentyfour-twentyfive-twentysix-twentyseven–_

He felt Aziraphale trailing behind him, but Crowley was so narrow-minded—no wait maybe he meant railroaded? _Something_ like that—he had nothing else in his head but the numbers he was counting to, and the dread of reaching thirty before he reached the door with everything important to him in hand–

Crowley nearly broke into a run mere steps before they reached the door to the outside, because he was already at _twenty-nine._

_Thirty._

It took everything in him not to cry out in relief when he pushed the door open and hauled himself through it just as his count ended. He shook a little as the door closed behind them.

“A– ah,” Crowley croaked lamely and forced his bloodless hand open from Aziraphale’s, just now realizing he was holding on far too tight. “Sorry. ‘M sorry…” Stepping to the side, he reached for Aziraphale’s wrist instead, taking it between two fingers, his hold delicate and easy to break if Aziraphale didn’t want to touch him anymore.

“Sorry,” He said again, unable to meet Aziraphale’s eyes, “Didn’t mean to hurt you, angel.”

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale murmured, reaching up with the hand Crowley had practically squeezed the life from, and cupping the side of his face. He stepped in close until they were chest to chest, Crowley’s back was pressed up against the cold, stone wall. It felt like last night, except instead of books digging into his back, the wall was smooth. There was a strange sort of cognitive dissonance between the feel of the cool stone at his back and the way the rest of him he sizzled and popped from the heat of Aziraphale. Cold sweathad drenched the back of Crowley’s shirt, underneath his jumper, when he wasn’t paying attention. Instead of Aziraphale needing the grounding of a body pressed against him, it was Crowley.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Aziraphale continued, “ _I’m_ sorry if it was anything in there that caused this. I… well, I didn’t even think to ask if it might be an issue for you, any of it.” Because there were plenty of reasons Mass might cause panic attacks, even if they weren’t always the obvious ones.

“No! No, I mean, sorry, I just–” Crowley breathed out another hiss and ran his hand through his hair, messing it up even further as he looked down and away. He’d had no experience with religion or churches or any of it, but he half-expected to be struck down by lighting for even looking at them these days. Especially the kind of churches that were as pristine or clean as this one. “It’s fine, wasn’t the service, it was fine.” He’d even kind of liked the cadence of it all, before he got caught up in his own head. And the stained glass. That was nice.

“Not Mass then?” Aziraphale asked gently, bringing up his free hand to cup Crowley’s other cheek so that his face was cradled _so gently_ , like a priceless treasure, between Aziraphale’s palms. He raised Crowley’s head so that he’d be forced to look Aziraphale in the eye and damn but Crowley had never been good at looking away from Aziraphale.

He’d only known him for so long, but it _felt_ like forever. Crowley thought that maybe not being good at looking away from Aziraphale was just written in his DNA, just a part of being _Crowley_ that he hadn’t discovered until he met the other man.

“Then what was it? How can I help, my dear?” Aziraphale continued, voice low and soothing. The weight and warmth of his body against the length of Crowley’s torso was comforting in a surreal way. Like a heat pack, but for his whole body, he thought half-hysterically. His hip ached from the cold, deep down in the joint, but he relaxed against Aziraphale soon enough, feeling like he was melting against him.

“Jus’ this‘s fine.” Crowley mumbled, his shoulders slumping as his hands moved to rest at Aziraphale’s hips, his touch light, light, _light_ so he didn’t accidentally hurt the man again. He allowed the weight of his head to settle in Aziraphale’s hands, trusting he wouldn’t let him fall.

“It is, is it?” Aziraphale murmured softly, something there that sounded just a little like delight, but slightly jittery in a way that made Crowley look up over the rim of his sunglasses to meet Aziraphale’s gaze.

His expression was soft in ways Crowley didn’t know how to categorize. He’d never been looked at like that before, like he was precious beyond measure, like he was something worth holding onto. He’d thought the movie depictions of love was just that, some Hollywood magic or trick of the cinematic reel to make people seem so _soft_ when they looked at someone they lov– liked.

Someone they liked.

There was something stern behind Aziraphale’s eyes too, something that flayed him open like a flounder under the fisherman’s knife, that gutted him and sliced underneath his skin and muscle to open a raw wound. Crowley didn’t know why that was either, and it made him want to cry and to pull away and run for the hills at the same time it made him want to bury himself between Aziraphale’s ribs and coil around his heart like a snake. He was sure it’d be warm. Everything about Aziraphale was warm.

“Y– yeah. ‘S fine, just like this.” Crowley whispered, unsure if he’d be able to raise his voice even if his life were on the line just now. Was Aziraphale closer? Maybe. Was Crowley leaning?

His shoulders weren’t against the wall anymore, just the back of his hips. And Aziraphale’s face was so near to his that their noses touched and he could time his breathing to inhale every breath that fled Aziraphale’s lungs; so that he could fill himself with the oxygen that had passed through Aziraphale’s body, that had pumped through his heart before returning to the air.

Crowley had always been greedy, and he couldn’t stop himself from coveting the air between them for having known Aziraphale far more intimately than he ever could. How dare those molecules know such comfort, and yet not think on it or treasure the gift they’d been given for lack of sentience? Crowley wasn’t sure he could forgive the air for not knowing what it was missing when it touched Aziraphale.

And then there wasn’t any air at all between them because Aziraphale’s lips were on Crowley’s and his entire body had shut down.

It was little more than the softest press of rose-petal lips to Crowley’s mouth, but it was more than enough to light him on fire. His mind emptied of any and all trailing thoughts–poured out from his ears, he was sure, or maybe whistled out of them like steam from a boiling kettle–and his knees buckled until all his weight was held up by Aziraphale.

Aziraphale breathed out roughly from his nose, a silent laugh that Crowley could feel against his skin, and started to pull away. Crowley wouldn’t be able to take being flayed open again, not when he felt so raw from the last time. Not when he’d just berated the air for not knowing what it had.

Crowley was a lot of things, and a hypocrite was among them, but if he wanted to be better for Aziraphale, to be good for Aziraphale, he wouldn’t be a hypocrite about this. Not on what had suddenly become the best day of his life. He quickly gathered all the wits he could find, scattered about him like jacks before the ball fell, and locked his legs to hold his weight. Still holding Aziraphale’s hips in his hands like so much precious china, Crowley leaned in to chase his lips with a sigh.

* * *

“ _Really_?” Michael’s voice broke them apart for the second time that morning. Crowley yelped again, pulling back from the kiss too quickly and hitting the back of his head against the stone behind him with a dull, painful-sounding _thunk_. Even as he moved his hand from Crowley’s cheek to soothe the painful bump on the back of his head, Aziraphale turned to look at his sister, sheepish at being caught out but not in the least bit sorry.

Michael ran one hand through her hair, mussing the carefully contained curls. She looked more like the sister Aziraphale used to enjoy playing with when they were young. It was a jarring feeling, to suddenly recall those sparse days while looking at her scowling face. She’d enjoyed tag and hated hide-and-seek, he remembered.

“I cannot _believe_ you didn’t tell us,” she snapped.

Aziraphale blinked. He glanced at Crowley and once more felt the ghost of Crowley’s lips on his. Neither of them had stepped away, their breath still mingled between them even though they were no longer kissing He felt something in his spine crystalize. 

“Oh you  _ can’t _ ?” Aziraphale snipped back, and Crowley’s fingers clenched convulsively around his waist. “Are we the sort of family that shares now? You’ll have to excuse my confusion. You see, I must be missing the bloody newsletter.” 

“A  _ newsletter _ , Aziraphale?” Michael’s voice dropped into a whispered hiss, cold and deadly. Aziraphale hadn’t ever been afraid of her, though. He could never be afraid of his family, even if he dreaded their interactions sometimes. 

He hated how the tension between them made Crowley seem to tremble under his fingertips, so he let go of Crowley and turned to better protect him from Michael's icy glare. Crowley had a panic attack, and they had been well in their rights to leave Mass to avoid disrupting it further. And, well, if that had turned into a kiss that had given Aziraphale’s heart the escape velocity to make it all the way out into the gravitational pull of Jupiter, then so be it! 

“Don’t be so dull! If you ever bothered to visit, then perhaps we would be more inclined toward sharing!” Michael continued. She didn’t have to step closer to make her threats, she never did. If Aziraphale weren’t her brother he might think it was an admirable tactic, but this wasn’t business, thiswas  _ family _ .

“Come visit?!” Aziraphale might have raised his voice if they weren’t in public, but there was only a relatively thin wooden door between them and the communion currently happening, so he kept his voice low as well. If there was one thing every Fell knew, it was that a cold anger could be just as, if not more effective, than something heated. “Come visit for what? Life events I’m not invited to or told about? You didn’t even let me know Uncle Rafe retired!”

Michael’s face shuttered and she frowned, pulling herself up to her full height in a way that, were it anyone else, Aziraphale might have described as retreat. But of course, this was Michael. “You didn’t need to know, Azira. You clearly don’t care much for the business.”

“But I care about the  _ family _ , Michaelangela!” Aziraphale shot back. If she was going to try to get away with calling him  _ Azira _ then he was happy to pull out the big gun that was her full name. He had no compunctions about being a bit petty when it lent weight to his moral argument. “Even if none of you feel the same, I  _ do _ care.”

There must have been something on his face–he was never the best at hiding his thoughts behind his expression–because Michael took one step forward, her hand rising from its place at her side before she snatched it back with a sigh. He echoed it with a sigh of his own, feeling suddenly all too heavy for his body, like his spirit weighed down his very bones. Crowley’s fingers, almost tentative where they’d suddenly landed at the base of his spine, lent him support that Michael could not see. But Aziraphale discovered it gave him the strength to say, “I’d have liked to have been at his retirement party, or– or sent a card at the  _ very least _ .” 

“Aziraphale…” Michael started, her whisper suddenly sounding less concerned with keeping quiet and more hurt than Aziraphale had ever expected to hear from her. But he wasn’t quite ready to give up the argument, not when it  _ finally _ felt like he was winning for  _ once _ with his family. Time to press the advantage and all that, which was perhaps cruel, but it had always been their advice.

“No. No, it's fine. I understand.” Aziraphale continued, his voice still low, “I’m not what any of you would have wanted. Can’t be part of the Fell Family Firm, won't ever bring home a wife and kids, can’t do bloody  _ anything  _ right.”

“Aziraphale!” Michael scolded with a shocked look on her face. If he were feeling any more uncharitable he might say she tried to clutch at the pearls she wasn’t wearing.

He took a breath to continue pushing the issue, only to deflate the moment Crowley’s fingertips left his back and curled around his hand. They were gentle and were rough, calloused in ways that fit perfectly around his own, and their touch a balm against the anger still glowing in his chest. Crowley pulled him back, softly, just a step. Like Crowley wasn’t sure he was allowed to do anything, and shame rose to fill the gaps in his anger. How could he have boxed Crowley in, physically forcing him to listen while Aziraphale fought with his sister. 

At church. 

Right after they kissed. 

The fight wasn’t about anything that even mattered anymore. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured under his breath, turning to look at Crowley, and a little surprised to see that Crowley’s eyes weren’t hidden by his glasses anymore. Or, at least, they weren’t fully covered, the glasses having slid down his nose as he looked past Aziraphale to Michael.

“I think you should go,” Crowley said evenly, but there was a very peculiar look in his eyes, as if he was confused and still determining exactly why he ought to be. He wrapped an arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders, half-protective and half-possessive. A knight in rumpled linen. Maybe Crowley’s armor would be too dark to shine, but he certainly would make a very lovely knight, if Aziraphale had anything to say about it. 

“Yes. Alright then.” Michael replied quietly. At the soft click of low-heeled shoes against stone, Aziraphale whipped his head around so quickly he nearly cracked his neck. Shocked, he watched as Michael slipped through the door and back into the service without a word of argument.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Crowley pulled Aziraphale close and turned him so that they faced each other once more. He gently wrapped both his arms around Aziraphale, until soft, pale curls pressed against his chest. 

Aziraphale had never been held like this, and had in fact always thought he’d find it claustrophobic, but he was beginning to realize it wasn’t. To be held like this made him feel secure and safe, and slowly the vague anxiety of confrontation fizzled to nothing at all. His own arms loosely circled Crowley’s waist and he  _ breathed _ . 

“I’m sorry, my dear.” Aziraphale repeated his apology, this time muffled a little by Crowley’s thick charcoal sweater. 

“Nothing to say sorry for,” Crowley said into his hair. Aziraphale shivered when he felt the flutter of a kiss against the top of his head. He was discovering that Crowley was deeply physically affectionate; and he wasn’t sure why, but it surprised him. 

After a moment of stillness and peace Crowley spoke again, “Do you want to go back in?” 

Aziraphale thought about the way Crowley’s hands had shook, about the mumbled numbers he'd just barely heard as he was pulled along outside, about the way Crowley had cried out as he fell and the way his eyes had lingered on the Serpent as they were made lame. 

“No,” he said, “I think, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to go for a drive. Find a nice cafe in a small town, and perhaps get back to what we were just doing.” He’d likely continue his fast, at least until dinnertime. The family always had a light soup and he thought he could make one with the ingredients in his flat. But, no matter his own choices, Crowley ought to get some food in him. Panic on an empty stomach was never fun.

Crowley’s worried look shifted, flashing right past relieved and into quietly happy faster than Aziraphale could blink. 

“That sounds perfect, angel.” 


	14. Of Golden Hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: non-sexual consent issues over tattooing, use of what amounts to a dead name, generally un-empathetic, dysfunctional parent-child relationships (to avoid these parts, skip Crowley’s dream at the end of the chapter, begins with "He hurts. It’s more than they said it would" and goes until "Crowley sat up in his bed", there will be a summary in the end notes). None of these warnings apply to interactions between Aziraphale and Crowley.
> 
> Also! A spoiler-free teaser for this chapter:

“You’d come away with me, right?” Crowley asked, a pensive look on his face as they raced through the empty roadways between the church and the manor to pick up their things. Well, perhaps ‘racing’ was a bit generous–Aziraphale thought it was a perfectly respectable speed, but he knew that meant Crowley would call it puttering, at best. Really, it was faster than rush hour and Aziraphale thought that was all that should matter. 

“I–” Aziraphale began, wrenching himself from the heady haze of endorphins still rummaging through his head to give Crowely a real answer. He took a moment to think, to give the question the time it (and the expression on Crowley’s face) deserved. “I don’t know, dear. I’d like to think so, I feel like I’ve known you for much longer than we’ve had together. But I don’t know.” It was honest, almost painfully so, but Aziraphale couldn’t stand the thought of lying to Crowley, not when he could still taste him on his lips. 

Crowley hummed and sped up just a little in response, saying nothing for a few moments. A few moments in which Aziraphale’s satisfaction with his honest answer turned to worries and fretting. It was the truth, he _didn’t_ know, they’d only _just_ kissed and he might have skipped out on Mass with his family for Crowley but they’d never cohabitated and he’d only known the other man for a few months–really, it was just so _fast_ and–

“That’s fine.” Crowley finally murmured softly, just barely over the rumble of the Bentley’s engine as they flashed past a small thicket. 

“Crowley, I don’t mean–”

“I know, angel. ‘S fine.” Crowley was quick to assure him. Aziraphale tried to smile at him, but Crowley’s eyes were on the road, one hand on the wheel, the other against his thigh, tapping out a wild rhythm. That was fine, he was just being safe. Except, well, he didn’t seem willing to look over at Aziraphale for the rest of the ride. 

When they rolled to a stop in front of the house, Crowley was up and around to Aziraphale’s side of the car, opening his door for him before he had a chance to do it himself. None of the household was there to greet them, likely because they were far earlier than expected. But that was fine, they simply went through a side door—let in by Brother Francis, who’d clearly just awoken from a nap. Wrapped in a silence broken only by quiet questions about where things belonged, they returned all the pillows and blankets from Aziraphale’s old room to the guest room, gathered their things, and departed without a word. The whole affair only took around ten minutes and as the Bentley trundled back down the drive, Aziraphale felt almost as if he should be feeling _something more_ about it all, something other than the slight dread at the base of his spine when he glanced at his companion and realized Crowley didn’t seem to be willing to lighten the atmosphere between them. 

As soon as they left the Fell grounds, Crowley leaned forward and flicked on the music. Aziraphale jumped when the car filled with the delicate lilt of a piano rather than Freddie Mercury. He’d somehow switched out the Best of Queen CD for something classical, for something _Aziraphale_ would like, at some point between arriving at the church (to the final notes of Flash) and leaving the manor, and Aziraphale hadn’t noticed. The dread drained away, soothed because this was something that told him Crowley wasn’t upset with Aziraphale. Or, at least, wasn’t angry with him. The relief was nearly dizzying. Aziraphale had had his fill of disapproval from the people he lo– cared for over the course of the last 24 hours, thank you very much.

Around halfway through the near-silent car ride, save a few aborted attempts at conversation from each of them, Crowley’s stomach gurgled obnoxiously loudly and then Aziraphale’s followed suit only a few minutes after.

“Late lunch, my dear?” Aziraphale asked softly, still somewhat worried about breaking the silence, serene or not. Visits back to his family always made it just that much more difficult to remember to take up his own space, made the rejections—or perceived rejections—harder to handle when they came.

“Yeah, alright.” Crowley sighed, sounding just as quiet and deferential as Aziraphale was sure he himself did, and suddenly… it all seemed alright somehow. They hadn’t really _fought_ , per se, but they also hadn’t _agreed_ on something that obviously meant a great deal to Crowley. Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure what it had been about, what Crowley meant by ‘come away with me’, but, even if Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been meant to say or why it was being asked, he realized now that it hadn’t caused an irreparable rift between them. 

“Know anything around here?” Crowley continued, his fingers once more dancing along the steering wheel, just as happy to move to Debussy as May. 

“You know, I rather think I do.” Aziraphale smiled to himself calmly and leaned back against the seat, letting his weight rest against it fully for the first time since their drive began. With only a moment’s hesitation, even as he continued speaking, Aziraphale raised his arm to rest against the back of the bench seats, his fingertips just barely brushing the little tendrils of hair at the base of his neck–they were too short to be pulled into the messy bun Crowley wore and Aziraphale found himself thinking they were very close to being his favorite feature of the other man. (He paid no mind to the sudden stiffness of Crowley’s arms that caused them to swerve slightly before immediately correcting when Aziraphale’s fingers accidentally pressed too close and grazed the skin at Crowley’s nape.)

“Next town is halfway between London and the Fell manor, almost exactly, did you know? Tadfield, it’s called if I remember correctly. It’s ever so lovely and, mm, Earthy, I think. They’ve got a good rustic sort of diner there. Just a couple miles away or so now.”

* * *

It was fully dark by the time the Bentley rolled to a creeping halt, tires crunching faintly on the asphalt, in front of Aziraphale’s flat. He was on the second floor, not far at all, but it felt like lightyears away from the car door. Crowley knew he needed to leave, had to go back home and Aziraphale had to go back to _his_ home, and they were in his bloody car for fuck’s sake. They couldn’t just _stay_ like this… but he also wanted them to. Everything was too sudden and new and it all felt so tenuous, as if the day were to end and he’d wake to find it was only all a dream. 

“Angel, I think–”

“Crowley, would you–” they spoke in unison, stopping and swallowing whatever else was going to come out of their throats, allowing the silence to descend again, awkward and waiting. Except. Crowley could just barely see the look in Aziraphale’s eye, but he knew it wasn’t an unhappy one. There was a moment, when he was working in the garden, when he’d planted a seed and watered it and fed it and all that was left to do was wait. 

Most people hated it, they couldn’t stand the not-knowing, but Crowley had always relished that moment. There was this feeling, like the plant could be anything or nothing or everything. It was little and fragile, but it was growing, germinating beneath the soil. The look in Aziraphale’s eyes felt like that and Crowley knew, _knew_ that the seed could grow, if only he was good enough to care for it like it deserved. 

“You go,” Crowley encouraged softly, doing his best to take care of it. Whatever _it_ might be between them.

“No, no, my dear, you first, it was rude of me to interrupt.” Aziraphale whispered back. Both their voices felt so loud in the emptiness of Crowley’s Bentley now that the music had gone, echoing with meanings he couldn’t untangle. No matter how desperately he applied all the equations he could think of, nothing quite added up how he wanted it to. Too afraid to add in that courage integer that would tilt the scales one way or another.

“I, ah…” Crowley looked down to where black shadows surrounded his feet and the pedals, rubbed at his cheekbone and over his ear to calm his nerves. It didn’t work. “Angel, I’d like– if it’s alright, no pressure, I don’t want to make anything weird for you. And I know we only just– yeah.” Crowley’s hands trembled and he dropped them to grip the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white even as he grit his teeth until his jaw ached to pull himself under control.

“Wanted to ask,” he managed, “I guess ‘f I could–”

“Stay over?” Aziraphale chimed in, voice soft and sweet, like fresh rain in the desert it was a balm for Crowley’s anxieties. Moreover, he sounded _hopeful_. Maybe, if Crowley could believe that anyone might be hopeful he’d stay around rather than hopeful he’d leave on his own so they didn’t have to kick him away.

“Y– yeah. That.” He didn’t like how small his voice sounded, or how weak it felt in his mouth. So he grumbled and cleared his throat, as if there were something there choking him up rather than his traitorous _emotions_ and nodded.

“Yes.” Aziraphale replied after a few moments. Crowley could _feel_ Aziraphale’s stare on him, burning like the sun reflected and concentrated with a mirror over his jaw and neck and down his arms to rest on his hands. Crowley let go of the wheel as if it burnt.

“Yeah?” Crowley choked.

“Yes.” Aziraphale was firmer now, and he reached out to grab one of Crowley’s hands, still crooked around the ghost of the steering wheel and cradled it in his own. Crowley blinked because he realized Aziraphale’s hand was shaking a little, just like Crowley had been, though there were no white knuckles to betray Aziraphale’s fears, just him so very, very bravely owning them. It was overwhelming, what he saw in Aziraphale’s eyes when he looked up into them for the first time in _hours_ , to see all those things there that he couldn’t seem to put into words. He only knew two things about whatever was there behind that crystalline blue, about what Aziraphale thought about him. The first was that Crowley desperately hoped it was a match for the things _he_ felt about Aziraphale. The second was that, whatever that feeling was, it was massive, and it would drown him.

There was a third thing that he was unsure of, and it would greatly depend on if the first thing was true. Crowley didn’t know if he’d like being drowned in all of that _everything_ Aziraphale had. It might hurt a lot, or it might be the sunrise. He wasn’t sure yet and he wanted to know enough to be.

“Alright, angel. Lead the way?”

* * *

They set their overnight bags by the kitchen table without bothering to unpack them, hands clasped and the soft, comfortable silence of an unhurried potential between them. Crowley made the first move, sort of, much to Aziraphale’s delight. Aziraphale knew himself—very well, he’d opine, if anyone asked him, and he _knew_ that he’d wait another hundred or thousand years with his hand in Crowley’s, worried about taking the things he wanted until everything turned to dust and it was too late anyway. 

So when Crowley led them to his sofa, Aziraphale breathed in deeply, relief filling his lungs. Crowley sat, Aziraphale followed, and neither bothered to untangle fingers intertwined or to scoot further away when their thighs touched. They were close enough that Aziraphale could _feel_ the way Crowley’s breath hitched in his lungs and the way Crowley shifted to face him and how the hand not wrapped around Aziraphale’s own reached up to touch his face. Happily, eagerly, he let Crowley blaze this trail for the both of them. 

They hadn’t dated, not really, but Crowley had met his family and kissed Aziraphale _anyway_ and that felt significant, very much so. Crowley’s lips on his were just as perfect as they had been earlier, or maybe even more now that he was comfortable and at home and Crowley had _seen_ his family and was _still here_ with him. His lips were dry, a little chapped, but they fit together with Aziraphale’s own so comfortably that Aziraphale thought he could be forgiven if he forgot time existed at all like this. 

And then, when the tip of Crowley’s tongue tentatively touched the seam of his lips, Aziraphale thought he ought to be forgiven for the slip of a moan that spilled out of him from the back of his throat. His hands were braver than the rest of him, it seemed, and he was only a little surprised with how they pressed into Crowley’s slim sides over his shirt and then up to his ribs so that the web of his thumbs curled in a perfect fit around the curve of the cage housing Crowley’s heart. It felt a little like having the whole of the lanky, gangly, _beautiful_ man in the palm of his hands and, really, could anyone _blame_ Aziraphale if he got caught up in him?

He was caught up on quite a lot of Crowley, in fact. He felt powerless to keep from drinking down any and all sounds Crowley made; it was almost cruel the way their tongues slid together, the way the sounds between them seemed to echo lewdly through Aziraphale’s chest and made him strain beneath all the layers he wore like he was meant to be much bigger than this body. They broke apart for the barest gasp of air before coming together in another searing kiss, Crowley humming delightedly at the way Aziraphale’s breath shuddered when his nails scraped down the back of Aziraphale’s neck. Aziraphale grinned, immensely pleased with himself, when Crowley forgot to choke back a moan when he flexed his hands to grip tightly at Crowley’s hips to pull him closer. 

If they’d been in the car still, Aziraphale thought idly, the windows would surely be fogged by now, but as it was he only felt intensely hot under the collar, rather a lot like he might combust at any moment. But he didn’t feel like a ship lost at sea, or even one in harbor with the threat of storms in port, instead it was a lot more like being a candle in the window, a bright and unafraid beacon of shelter from whatever winds might beat down on the glass before him. 

Somehow, between the kissing and breathing and the tease of their wandering hands, Aziraphale had pulled Crowley on top of his lap, legs splayed wide with knees pressed into the couch cushions on either side of Aziraphale’s hips. Distantly, Aziraphale was aware he was smiling into their kisses—making it just a little bit harder to kiss Crowley senseless properly, but too pleased with a pretty man so obviously interested in him to do anything about it—and he held Crowley in place to roll his hips up and grind against him, yanking a moan from the both of them.

Crowley gasped loudly and pulled back from Aziraphale, panting, his weight still in Aziraphale’s lap but leaning away from him now. He was trembling and Aziraphale’s lips tilted down at the edges in something approaching confusion as he pulled his wits back together. 

“Are you alright, my dear?” Aziraphale murmured, not wanting to speak loudly enough to break the spell of silence around them.

“Nrk–” Crowley fumbled and then froze when Aziraphale moved one of his hands to splay over the middle of Crowley’s back, ensuring he didn’t fall backward with his leaning. “Yeah, ‘s fine, ‘m fine. Just tired… I guess.”

“Too fast for you?” Aziraphale asked softly with a small smile, hoping it didn’t sound disappointed. He’d liked kissing, quite a lot, but he was just as happy to cuddle if that was still on the table.

“No! No, ‘course not! Speed demon, me, you know!” Crowley squawked, throwing his hands out in the air before pulling on a chagrined look, eyes darting to Aziraphale’s and then away again, landing somewhere just to the left of Aziraphale’s left shoulder. “Just, yanno… tired. Long drive and maybe we should. I don’t know, it’s like you said. Feels like I’ve known you for a couple of millennia but it’s only _actually_ been a couple of months and. Yeah…”

If Aziraphale could taste the air for lies, he thought it would taste bitter and a little like over-brewed, tannic black tea. Maybe white lies would be like over-steeped white tea, each different sort of lie with its own ruined taste, maybe not. Either way, the taste on the back of his tongue was suddenly bitter as the thought occurred that perhaps he’d done something to make Crowley uncomfortable enough he felt the need to hide what was wrong… 

“Would you like tea then, dear?” Aziraphale sketched a smile that felt a little too brittle to be real and released his grip on Crowley, shifting to the side to let Crowley off his lap and back onto the couch. He stood, readjusted his waistcoat and smoothed his trousers as best he could, hoping tea would help calm him. “We can watch something maybe, if you’d like to look?”

“Yeah, angel…” Crowley replied slowly, “Tea sounds…. Tea’s fine.” Aziraphale nodded once and turned on his heel, beating a rapid retreat to the kitchen where he went about making a pot of tea and settling himself. Crowley made a few noises in the other room, shuffling through the books and papers to find the remote and flick on the tv to look through channels. 

“Holy _fuck_ , angel!” Crowley shouted, nearly making Aziraphale drop the kettle. He set it back down and rushed over in a flutter.

“Crowley, are you alright?” Aziraphale fretted and looked the man up and down for any injury, relaxing when he saw none, only a massive grin chasing the shadows from Crowley’s face. 

“Golden Girls! There’s a marathon!”

“Of a show?”

“Yes, of course! Don’t tell me you’ve never watched _The Golden Girls_ ,” Crowley selected the channel and threw the remote down decisively. “Eve and I watched every episode the first summer I lived with her. She’s th’biggest fucking Sophia I’ve ever met, no matter what she says about it. I refuse to be wrong there. Of course she says Sophia’s a bitch but like, yeah? That’s great? She’s amazing and Eve’s a bit of a bitch too, so it’s perfect. You’re obviously a Rose.” He blush when he said that, though Azirpahale had absolutely no idea what that meant. “‘M probably Blanche, ya know, bit of a slut before you, angel.” 

Aziraphale blinked in surprised confusion, just _where_ did all that energy come from? “That’s very, ah, sweet? But, my dear, I can honestly say I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Crowley rolled his eyes with an exaggerated huff and flopped back down on the sofa, grin still just as wide, “Sorry then, buddy, but you can’t be my boyfriend until you’ve seen it!”

Aziraphale laughed sharply at that, covering his mouth with a hand, his eyes wide, startled at his own noise, but it did solve the unspoken _boyfriend problem_ quite nicely. “Well then, darling. If this is the whole of my 12 Labors for my prize then I suppose I must…”

“Damn right!” Crowley looked up at Aziraphale over the rim of his glasses and Aziraphale had to lean against the doorway to the kitchen to keep from swooning at just how prettily Crowley’s eyes sparkled in his unashamed delight.

A few minutes, two mugs of tea, and one rambling recap of the first season which they had missed later, Crowley and Aziraphale were once more sat on the sofa. They pressed together from knee to knee, hip to hip, along their sides with free hands and arms faux-casually resting around waists and shoulders. Even if he didn’t fully grasp or particularly care for everything in the show, Crowley’s enthusiasm would have made him like it even if it was terrible. 

Crowley kept up an eager commentary in a hushed voice for the first two episodes, his lips just barely brushing the base of Azirpahale’s neck when he turned to speak from where he rested against his shoulder. But the fourth episode his commentary had petered off to exhausted chuckles and ‘see, angel, toldja yer’a Rose’, to which Aziraphale could only sleepily press an affirming kiss to the crown of his head, and by six and a half episodes in, they’d both fallen asleep, their cups entirely drained of Silver Needle tea. 

* * *

As the days began to warm, they fell into a sort of pattern. Crowley spent more nights than not at Aziraphale’s though he never slept in the bedroom. That was alright, Aziraphale didn’t mind in the slightest. In fact, there was something deeply charming about the half-bashful way Crowley would glance to the bedroom door as the dark descended upon them before picking up the throw folded over the back of the couch and nestling himself closer to Azirpahale’s side. 

He was usually gone before Aziraphale woke in the morning, his shift at the garden center starting long before Aziraphale’s daily argument with the sun began. But, he never felt abandoned or slighted because each morning Aziraphale would venture to the kitchen and find a mug set out with a teabag and the kettle filled. Sometimes there was even a fresh pastry from the bakery up the street that was always out of Aziraphale’s favorites before he woke. 

It was all oddly domestic and natural feeling and Aziraphale really could not believe he was lucky enough to have it. 

Days on campus passed quickly, embroiled as he was in his thesis. It seemed that before he blinked he was packing up his things and making his way to the garden center. There he’d set up at the counter with his books, sometimes astronomy, sometimes his thesis, sometimes his personal reading. He met Eve, Crowley’s boss and… roommate? Aziraphale was a bit unsure what their arrangement was, but he liked Eve a great deal. On warm days, Crowley’s snake, Junior would join Aziraphale, lazily spending hours curled up in the warm light that streamed through the window behind the counter. It was odd; Azirpahale knew snakes conserved whatever energy they could, but he had always thought they were a _bit_ more active than Junior appeared to be. 

When Crowley’s shift ended they would go out to dinner or back to Azirpahale’s place where they cooked together and fell onto the couch to continue working their way through the genuinely massive back catalog of Golden Girls episodes (almost against his will, Azirpahale had found himself invested in their lives). 

One day, as he brewed tea and smiled at the little heart Crowley had drawn in dry-erase marker on the window (Crowley was an utter demon with dry-erase, doodling sloppily over any viable surface), Aziraphale realized this was the happiest he had ever been. 

* * *

The astronomy library was one of Aziraphale’s favorites. It was much smaller than the majority of the other libraries on campus and tucked into what appeared to be an old classroom, if the chalkboard that peeked from between the mismatched shelves was anything to go by. Nothing matched or looked like it had been intended for the same room; chairs with wildly different upholsteries and woods, each with their own uniquely carved details, sat around a single spindly-legged table at the nexus of the radiating shelves. The table was usually piled high with books that the astronomy professors had pulled for reference and not returned to their shelves, but Aziraphale took a quiet sort of satisfaction in gathering them up and finding where they each belonged. It always began his work on a positive note. 

“Hello there, darlings,” he would greet the books as he collected them. The vast majority of them were listings of the positions and measurements of various stars, pages and pages and pages of luminosity and distance and fluctuations. They were dizzying. He only understood their purpose because he’d made a photocopy of one on his first visit and taken it to Crowley for help. Once decoded, Aziraphale quite liked the books, testaments as they were to the tenacity of the people who had taken such care to record the behavior of things lightyears away. Moreover, he’d always liked history and Crowley had explained about how when they looked into the stars they were actually looking at a stained glass fractal of the whole of Creation, the light he looked at now had maybe left the stars as Ptolomy breathed his last or the first fish decided land was an interesting place to check out. 

He liked that sort of connection to times he’d never witness. 

Just now, Azirpahale was elbows deep in research, skimming through a number of different books looking for references to the little blob of ink in the center of the fragile chart he’d been restoring. He _thought_ it was probably just a drip from the quill of the captain who’d drawn the chart, but he couldn’t be sure until he’d checked all the possible things it could be. He had a thought, something that he was afraid to mention even to Crowley for fear of sounding like a fool, and he wanted all the data he could muster before he brought it up. 

He closed one book and was just reaching to pick up another when the library door creaked open, admitting Professor Avgerinós and a young woman Azirpahale hadn’t met before. He swallowed. He might be doing better in the Professor’s class now, but the cutting remarks in lecture had not ceased, nor had the anxiety Aziraphale felt around the man lessened. 

“Hello, Professor.” He forced himself to smile even as he pressed his hands to the table to stop them from shaking visibly. 

Professor Avgerinós peered down his nose at Aziraphale, arching one eyebrow and breathing out in what could only be a sigh. The little bit of hope that he’d be able to get out of this conversation without embarrassing himself curdled in Aziraphale’s gut. 

“Mister Fell.” As always, Professor Avgerinós’ voice was cool, disinterested in everything around him. He reached out and flipped the cover of the top book on the stack closest to him, running his fingers across the embossed pages. “It’s admirable of you to be so determined in your… hmm, mediocrity feels like an appropriate descriptor.” Aziraphale’s breath caught in his chest. 

He wasn’t– He couldn’t be– He wasn’t _mediocre_. Sometimes his mind told him he was, told him he’d never amount to anything and that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life switching from the accounting degree to work on books and preservation and all the fiddly little things no one needed. But, he was _good_ at it, he knew he was. Professor Haistwell didn’t lie to anyone and ens had told him more than once how very talented he was at the physical parts of their shared work. 

It was a lot to remember, the things he was good at, and then he thought about the way Crowley’s grin curled the corners of his mouth when he listened to Aziraphale talk about his thesis. There was a constant warmth, a glow that filled his chest these days because, sometimes, Crowley _asked_ about the thesis and his work without prompting and then he listened to everything Aziraphale said and asked followup questions. No one had ever done that with him before. The first time he’d actually been a bit confused, unsure what he should be saying because he’d gotten so used to trying to fit everything into that first burst of information. Crowley had only grinned and waited until Aziraphale recovered his wits. 

He used that warmth as fuel now, gathering it up and rolling it into small enough pieces to be shaped and fired into words that might stand the test of time. 

“Thank you, Professor, I’ve always been tenacious,” he said, trying to give his smile the sort of hard-edge he’d recently seen Eve turn on an unruly customer. There was a sharp little intake of breath at that from the student who was still hidden halfway behind Professor Avgerinós. 

He shot her a quelling glance before smiling thinly at Aziraphale, “Quite. Well, if you can’t manage intelligence, there’s no harm in being ignorant, I suppose.”

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale said, nodding rapidly, “You can’t learn anything at all if you think you know everything already. I do so enjoy learning. In fact, I’ve employed a tutor to help me with your course.”

Professor Avgerinós opened his mouth to speak, but the student at his back cleared her throat, “Sir? We really should be going. The project team will be meeting soon and you said–”

“I know what I said, Li.” Professor Avgerinós closed the book with a snap and stepped away from the table. “I expect I’ll be receiving your project proposal soon, Fell? Remember, you need to sign up for telescope time early, I’d hate for you to get a slot in the wee hours, with your teaching schedule.” 

“Thank you, sir,” he said, just as Professor Avgerinós opened the door. Li shot an apologetic look back at him and then the door was closed and they were gone. 

Feeling strangely calm, Aziraphale nodded and began to gather his own materials from the table. He wanted to see Crowley, and they had a date planned. Crowley had been rather secretive about the whole thing, but he’d promised that it would be, “Rom com worthy, angel! Nothing but the cheesiest for you.” 

He made good time and arrived at the garden center just as Eve was flipping the sign. She lit up, gesturing for him to hurry. 

“Good evening!” he greeted, taking her hand and shaking it vigorously. They’d met before, of course, but there was something about Eve that put him on his best behavior. 

“The boy’s asleep,” Eve told him as she locked the door. “It’s a bad day for his hip so he wanted to take a bit of a nap before you two lovebirds got up to any funny business.” 

Aziraphale’s face blazed with sudden heat. “We’re not– I mean– that’s not the plan. We’re just having, ah, dinner? Right. Dinner. I think. I mean, I’m not entirely sure. Crowley was very secretive about it all.” He wrung his hands, “Oh, I do hope he’s not feeling too poorly. Do you think he’d mind if I looked in on him?” 

Eve studied him for a long moment before she nodded. “I think he’d probably like that.” 

The warmth in Aziraphale’s chest bloomed, little tendrils of fire curling out and towards his extremities. Oh, he did like the idea of Crowley liking him being around. 

“Excellent,” he nodded, “I’ll do that then.” He glanced around, suddenly realizing, “Only, I’m not sure where his room is?” 

* * *

_He hurts. It’s more than they said it would. Well, no, that’s not quite right. It’s more than Beez and Dagon said it would. Hastur had gone on and on (and for good measure, on some more) about how bad it hurt and how much he’d bled and blah blah blah. But, really, Toni’s always thought that Hastur just enjoys a bit of a winge and so he’d not taken him seriously at all._

_He should’ve. Because his face_ hurts _._

_Unthinkingly, he reaches up and rubs at the very edges of the sore spot, the tips of his fingers slipping in a bit of vaseline where it had escaped the plastic covering. He grimaces, hating the slick feel of it and wishing he’d just said no. Well. He_ had _said no, a number of times and at increasingly higher volumes, but Beez had been insistent and Toni had never been very good at telling them no and sticking with it. Not when no meant that he’d not be left with any sort of friends at all._

_(Last year a very nice lady had come to their school and told them about how ‘one no was enough’ and ‘anyone who doesn’t listen to you doesn’t really want to be your friend’ and he’d sat in the back of the auditorium with Beez and Ligur and they’d taken turns using a razor to scratch dirty words into the floor. He’d wanted to tell the nice lady that it was a shame she was wasting her life because in his experience the only people who could stand to be around him were the ones who ignored him when he said ‘no’.)_

_He really isn’t surprised his face hurts, it’s just been stabbed by a lot of needles after all, what’s more surprising is that the rest of him aches as well. He must have been more tense than he thought in that chair. He grits his teeth against the remembered buzzing sound, against the scrape of needles across skin, against_ –

_Sudden, raucous shouts and jeering surround him and Toni yanks himself back into the present moment just in time to duck under Haster’s haymaker. He’d have laughed if it connected—you never showed them when it hurt, that was the first thing he’d learned—but it was easier to avoid the pain altogether._

_“Oh fuck off,” he says, forcing himself to grin and then to find something like satisfaction in the way it sends the pain from dull ache to low roar._

_“_ Oh fuck off,” _Hastur parrots back at him, tone lilting and already raspy. He smokes two packs a day on weekends and days when he can skip school (most days really, Hastur’s not what anyone could call smart and he doesn’t quite understand how attendance works)._

_Toni resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him. Five years ago he’d’ve done it and Hastur would have done it back and they would have ended up a tangle of limbs and fond bruises._

_Now Hastur carries a knife and Toni doesn’t like to be touched._

_They round the corner and Toni gives the lot of them a two-handed, two-fingered salute. Beez calls something after him but he can’t stand the idea of one more command or request or ‘hey, what about_ –’ _today and so he slips his phone from his pocket and waves it in the air, a silent command to text him whatever it was that they wanted. Then, he’s away from them all, their noise and their chaos somehow stymied by the quiet of his neighborhood._

_He’s never sure where he fits more. His knees have never not been scraped up and his knuckles seem to ache for fighting (for all that he dislikes every other part of it, he does enjoy a good punch) and those things come with Beez in spades. But, his feet want to be bare and his legs want to stretch across grass damp with morning dew and that’s the quiet of this neighborhood with its imposing stone facades and an army of gardeners. He heard his mother talking last week about the Dowlings advertising for_ another _part-time gardener and he wants nothing more than to apply for the summer. That’s the kind of posting that could actually turn into something if he’s smart about it._

_He reaches his house and slips his shoes off at the door. He can just barely hear the sounds of his parents in the formal sitting room, the quiet clink of metal against china. His dad must’ve landed that client, they usually take tea in the kitchen. Toni glances down at his clothes and grimaces. His parents like him to look neat and this is… not that. So, he hefts his messenger bag higher on his shoulder and starts for the stairs._

_“Anthony, is that you? Come in here, boy.” Toni pauses, grimacing. He’s told them time and time again that he doesn’t like to be called that name, but it’s his father’s and grandfather’s and great grandfather’s and on and on, an endless line of Anthonys. Sometimes he feels like they’re all watching him, waiting for him to slip up and ruin the name, and then they can say, “I knew it, this is the one. The Anthony who ruined it all. He wasn’t worthy of our name.” And he hates that feeling because he doesn’t want to be worthy of the name. He doesn’t want the name in the first place._

_“Yeah, Dad!” he calls back, his face aching anew at the motion, “I’m just gonna drop my bag and then_ – _”_

_“Your father said come in here,” his mother cut in, steel threaded through the lace of her voice, and there’s no ignoring or delaying that. Geneviève Darrington is a woman who gets what she wants when she wants it. And does nothing she doesn’t want to, including changing the last name on her doctorate certification._

_As he turns around and starts back down the stairs he thinks for the first time about what they’ll do when they see the new addition to his face. He’s 16, practically grown, they can’t really do much to punish him anymore. The idea of being grounded is actually almost laughable._ Oh no, _he thinks to himself as he rounds the corner and enters the formal sitting,_ They might take my books. However will I entertain myself if not by reading. _Even if it was just in his head, the joke lightened Toni’s mood and when he sees his parents he’s actually smiling a bit. Sometimes these teas were nice, they talked about all manner of things and his parents even let him ask questions, sometimes he even got answers to those questions._

_Sometimes he remembered why his parents were as well-liked and popular in their social circles as they were. At those times he wishes he could be more like them, so easily sure of himself and what he’s meant to be doing or saying._

_He manages to hold onto that hope for all of fifteen seconds after he enters the room before there’s a quiet gasp and a flurry of movement and his arm is being grabbed and his head turned and_ fuck _that hurt, why was his dad poking at his face? Couldn’t he see well enough? The plastic is clear and the snake is bold._

_“Dad, you’re hurting_ –”

_“What the devil is this, Anthony?” His father is loud, why is he so loud? Are the lights suddenly brighter? The ache on the side of his face is spreading down his neck to where his father still holds his arm._

_“A tat_ –” 

“ _Is that a tattoo?” His mother’s voice is always delicately, stereotypically feminine and now she sounds nearly faint. Toni knows she’s not, knows it’s a weapon, but it’s hard to remember right now because he’s never wanted to hurt his mum or his dad._

_“Oh, Anthony,” she says and it’s a knife across his throat, cutting off all ability to speak or explain._

_He opens his mouth and there’s just… nothing. He has nothing. No words. No explanation. It had all seemed so inevitable earlier. He hadn’t wanted it but no one was listening and now, when there’s silence and waiting ears he can’t find any of those thoughts. Tell them! His mind screams, and he can only beg it for anything at all because he wants to. He’s so tired of hiding things from his parents, from sneaking out at night because Beez texted him or wearing thicker jumpers because Hastur got too rough, of never having time to do any of his homework or read the assignments. He knows he’s not especially smart but he used to manage okay and he’s not doing that anymore, he’s barely keeping his head above water, or no, that’s not quite right, he’s standing on clouds, has been for ages and he wants to tell them everything and let them bring him back onto solid ground because he’s never really liked heights and–_

_“Nothing to say for yourself?” His dad goes on and no no no he doesn’t have anything to say because his brain won’t give him any of it. There’s a wall in his mind, high high high high too high and the words he needs can’t find their way over it, can’t even make it to vague thoughts. A wordless noise escapes him._

_His dad drops his arm and whirls away._

_“I won’t have it Geneviève, I won’t,” he snaps out after a few steps. “We knew he was making poor decisions, on a bad path. But, this? I will not have a delinquent under my roof.”_

_He goes on, his voice firm and final but ticking ever closer to something Toni’s never heard before, until his mum steps in with:_

_“Then, don’t.”_

_Everything freezes around him._

_“What?” It’s the first word he’s managed to dredge up (the one written on his soul, he always wants to know more, more, more and no one ever tells him but of course ‘why’ is there when he can’t find anything else)._

_His mum’s face is clear, the light on the clouds he stands on, and she seems to have come to a decision._

_Her mouth opens and he can just see the first sound form on her lips and he’s trying to find something, anything, he’s sure the right words are there, the thing he needs to say to remind them that he’s their kid, that they don't need to do this, but he can’t can’t can’t can’t_

_he was standing on clouds before and now_

_there’s nothing_

_nothing_

_he’s falling_

_falling_

_he wonders how the ground will feel when he lands._

Crowley sat up in his bed, coated in a cold sweat, his heart beating wildly even as he tried to get his eyes to focus on what was in front of him. The moon shone bright through the plants, which cast a sickly grey-green light over his shed. He panted lightly, his throat felt dry and raw and seconds from cracking open and his fingers were curled into white-knuckled claws around the blanket. 

He was so tired, so incredibly fucking tired. Why was this happening? Everything felt pretty okay in the light right now, he was over the moon about the time he spent with Aziraphale and there hadn’t even been any annoying customers recently. And yet… 

Every single night since returning from Aziraphale’s family he’d woken to the dream. He could never sleep again after it, too shaky, too sure that he’d once again see his mother’s cool regard or feel his father’s hand on his arm. Viciously, he rubbed shaking fingers over the tattoo on his face, trying to chase the phantom ache from his skin. 

He was so goddamn tired. 

A glance at the clock told him that he’d managed a whole four hours. “Great,” he muttered. There was nothing for it really, nothing he could do to fall back asleep or find more rest. He might as well get started on work early. 

Crowley sighed and glanced to where he’d tossed his ratty weeding clothes before toppling into bed last night. He should get up. Should get started. Eve never minded if he used her kitchen at weird hours to make espresso. He could get some caffeine and then maybe he could finish the weeding with enough time to look at the water catchment system Eve had been “casually mentioning” for the last few weeks. 

He should really get up. 

Crowley closed his eyes and began to count. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Four...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the memory/dream Crowley refers to himself as Toni, as a more feminine form of Anthony/Tony. He's recently 16 and slowly figuring out that he likes the feminine version better even if it sounds the same, and has a few skirts hidden in his closet because he likes wearing them. 10 years later and modern-day Crowley prefers his surname as a gender-neutral name and is solidly genderfluid and happy with it. His pronouns are generally he/him by 'default' (but is perfectly happy with any pronouns) though he does like his femininity to be acknowledged when he shows it.
> 
> Summary of dream: Crowley dreams memories of himself being 16 and having just been forced into getting the snake tattoo on his face. He walks home alongside them thinking about how the gang used to be more like friends before they all changed and became more violent and ruthless with each other and how he's hardened in response. When he arrives home, his parents do not take well to his new tattoo and his father grabs his arm and says that he will not have a delinquent in their home, to which his mother agrees and pushes his father to do something about it . Then, he wakes up and decides to start his day early since he's been having these dreams for a while and can never sleep after them.
> 
> We know that was a bit of a rough one, so we wanted to offer you some fluff and stuff to maybe soothe some of that away. Here are certified Softe(tm) fics by each of us and an entire collection of Softe fic;  
> cassieoh: [In Eternal Lines to Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20496050)  
> D20Owlbear: [Daffodalia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22428886)  
> [Break In Case of Emergency: Fluff and Love](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SoftAndGoodOmens)


	15. Of Kept Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warnings: gaslighting language is used, not on purpose but because the speaker doesn't have much knowledge of healthy relationships, the addressee does not accept it; Crowley yells at Aziraphale because he's been trained to cover fear with anger as a survivial mechanism.  
> These are the same section which begins with;  
> Moving to straighten up and give Crowley a bit more space, Aziraphale frowned in confusion and pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to startl–”
> 
> and ends after;  
> “Crowley, I should go,” Aziraphale said, firmly.

Crowley splashed some water from the kitchenette sink on his face and toweled off, feeling tired and worn thin from the nightmare, no matter that he'd slept like the dead. He scoffed to himself and checked his phone with a frown. 

Fuck. 

There on his lock screen was Beelzebub, message hidden as always. He wasn't stupid enough to keep his phone unlockable by fingerprint or facial recognition, or let his notifications be even partially read while it was locked. 

He tapped in his code; it changed daily, numbers climbing up. Today's was 377030, tomorrow it'd be 377130. His fingertip burned and the nightmare pressed close as he entered the reminder not to get too comfortable. Thirty seconds changed his life 3,770 days ago in an uncompromisingly permanent way. 

Flicking the screen open and tapping on the message, Crowley sighed heavily. A job, of course that’s what it was. Things were ramping up; he wasn't just an alibi or a quick ride anymore. Recently he’d been a delivery driver, taking unmarked package B to site F and the package at site F to drop point 4 at noon exactly, and so on. He didn't know what he was transporting, he hoped desperately it wasn't ammunition or anything that might blow him up, but he also was smart enough not to ask. Not after Hastur bought himself a new pair of wicked-looking knuckle dusters and took great pleasure in describing exactly what they were capable of. 

At least it wasn't until tomorrow, he could still have his picnic with Aziraphale tonight like he'd planned. In—he checked the time—2 hours. _Plenty of time,_ he thought to himself, already eyeing the mattress on the low metal frame again. _Plenty of time to nap, just a little, it'd be embarrassing to fall asleep on Aziraphale, and I'd hate it if he thought he was boring 'cause of it. 'Snot boring, not a bit…_

* * *

“The boy’s asleep,” Eve told him as she locked the door. “It’s a bad day for his hip so he wanted to take a bit of a nap before you two lovebirds got up to any funny business.” 

Aziraphale’s face blazed with sudden heat. “We’re not– I mean– that’s not the plan. We’re just having, ah, dinner? Right. Dinner. I think. I mean, I’m not entirely sure. Crowley was very secretive about it all.” He wrung his hands, “Oh, I do hope he’s not feeling too poorly. Do you think he’d mind if I looked in on him?” 

Eve studied him for a long moment before she nodded. “I think he’d probably like that.” 

The warmth in Aziraphale’s chest bloomed, little tendrils of fire curling out and towards his extremities. Oh, he did like the idea of Crowley liking him being around. 

“Excellent,” he nodded, “I’ll do that then.” He glanced around, suddenly realizing, “Only, I’m not sure where his room is?"

Aziraphale hummed in mild confusion at Eve's directions, out of the flat and past the greenhouses to The Shed, as she called it, that Crowley had so resolutely steered their tour away from all those weeks ago. How interesting. 

_Most likely, he has a hammock,_ Aziraphale reasoned to himself, already on his way down the stairs to the showroom and then out the back. _That he's hung up for naps during the day when he doesn't want to be disturbed. Or go upstairs! It makes perfect sense, Crowley had no reason to hide his home from Aziraphale or anything like that._

_Of course not._

He settled those thoughts firmly in place with a gentle smile that felt more than a little soppy at the mental image of a sleeping Crowley. He seemed so much more relaxed in sleep than Aziraphale was used to seeing him, so catching him at a nap after tutoring or curled up in his bed after kissing was a treat. Eagerly, Aziraphale slid open the pocket door to the shed and paused, blinking in surprise. 

_Oh. How interesting._

There was a kitchenette that looked well lived in. Pans on the stove, countertops scattered with the random kitchen detritus that accumulated; like garlic skins and drying sponges and junk mail. Further down, across from the doorway, Aziraphale could see a bit of a bathroom peeking out from behind another door, and to his left was a large window covered in plant-life, partially concealed by a large wardrobe right next to the door. 

Massive green things with very few flowering blooms lined the window, vines that grew across well-placed hooks on the wall and indoor bushes and ferns filtering sunlight through green cells, giving the room a somewhat warm and humid feel. Though certainly not as intense as the greenhouse, it had a lot of the same feeling to it, if perhaps a bit more of the jungle.

Aziraphale stepped further inside and bit back a soft gasp when he saw Crowley stashed away in the corner, hidden by plants and wardrobe from the entrance, curled up on top of lumpy blankets and clutching at a pillow like it might run away in his sleep. He could no more help the soft smile that crept over his lips than he could stop the days from turning into nights, and no desire to do so either.

"Oh, Crowley," he sighed. There was, surely, a reason he'd kept Aziraphale away from here, had said 'There’s nothing in there worth looking at' during their tour. He bent down on one knee beside the mattress and ran his fingertips over Crowley’s scalp, light enough not to wake him just yet. It was a dream, it had to be, that Aziraphale was permitted to be here beside someone so beautiful as Crowley and touch him. That he could be as gentle and soft as he liked with no recrimination for it, but that’s not _all_ he was to Crowley.

“Come on now, my darling,” Aziraphale whispered, leaning down to kiss Crowley’s temple and absently stroking his hair. “It’s time to wake up, you said you had a surprise? Wake up Crowley, my dear…”

Crowley mumbled and whined a little, shoving his face into his pillow, and muttered something that sounded quite a lot like “Azuraful.” Unable to help himself under the onslaught of affection that welled up in him, Aziraphale kissed the small, curling snake just in front of Crowley’s ear and nuzzled his nose against the redhead’s jaw. 

“Mmhm,” he hummed with a smile, “That’s right, dear, wake up. I couldn’t stop thinking about what you might have planned. Something perfectly lovely, I’m sure.”

Crowley squeaked and suddenly went rigid and still underneath Aziraphale’s hand before flinging himself back with a ragged, choked shout of “Aziraphale?!”

Moving to straighten up and give Crowley a bit more space, Aziraphale frowned in confusion and pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, my dear, I didn’t mean to startl–”

“Bloody _fuck_ , Aziraphale!” Crowley interrupted with a hard bark and a snarl on his lips that belied the panicked look in his eyes. “You can’t just– fuck!”

“I– I apologize,” Aziraphale started, rocking back onto his heels and pulling his hands up defensively, but he was cut off again with a hiss from Crowley.

“Why the fuck are you here?!” Crowley shouted and surged up and stood on the bed, blanket twisting around his legs as it fell. His hands jittered even as a flush darkened his face and his pupils dilated, giving him a wild look. His eyes darted around the room, skipping from place to place and landing everywhere but Aziraphale until he stood up with his hands still palms out and as high as his shoulders.

“I just– Eve said I should wake you.” Aziraphale stuttered and nearly tripped over his own feet, feeling wildly out of his depths and entirely confused about Crowley’s reaction. He’d never been upset to be woken when he’d fallen asleep with Aziraphale before… 

“Eve!” Crowley growled and stepped off the mattress, wobbling a little and kicked the blanket from his feet with sharp, jerky movements. He whipped towards the door and Aziraphale followed, hand outstretched he grabbed at Crowley’s hand, pulling him back from his path.

“Crowley! Just _what_ has gotten into you?!” Aziraphale cried, brow furrowed and his frown turning deeper by the second. Crowley’s palm was surprisingly sweaty, damp and uncomfortable to hold onto, especially when the man so clearly didn’t want him near.

Crowley whirled around and stepped in close to loom over Aziraphale, snarl incandescent on his face. Aziraphale leaned back, his eyes widened in something that might have been fear if he didn’t know that Crowley would never hurt him. But that small little voice in the back of his head kept whispering, more and more frantic the more upset Crowley seemed to get, that he _could_ hurt Aziraphale. He didn’t have to mean it, didn’t have to want to, simply had to… forget. And Aziraphale, he knew, was very forgettable.

Crowley shook bodily with the force of his hissing displeasure, “Azira. Let. Me. Go.” Every word was punctuated with Crowley leaning in just a little further, turning his loom into something more sinister that set off nearly every klaxon along his spine and made him want to find somewhere to hide away from Crowley’s ire-bright eyes. Crowley had— He’d never called Aziraphale anything save ‘angel’ or his full name since they met, hearing the nickname was nauseating. 

Before Aziraphale could say anything back, Crowley snatched his hand away and stepped back, still glaring and vibrating with the pent up energy Aziraphale might expect from a caged tiger. Nervous and angry and trapped. It hit like a crossbow bolt to Aziraphale’s chest that somehow he’d made Crowley feel that way, what boundary he’d overstepped he didn’t know, but it was there and he should have noticed the neon flashing lights it’d been drawn in.

“Why are you even here? What gave you the right?”

“I’d thought being your _boyfriend_ meant I could—”

“Yeah well, you’ve always been a bit slow with picking up signs, haven’t you?” Crowley snapped and a dry, sobbing sound erupted from Aziraphale’s chest, the tears pricking at his eyes only a moment later. 

“That was–” Aziraphale croaked weakly, folding in on himself and leading with his shoulder to push past Crowley towards the open doorway. 

“That was _cruel_ , Anthony!” He shouted back and marched out of the small home of Crowley’s, gritting his jaw and hoping the tears would wait until he made it back home. Or at least keep to blurring his vision rather than streaking down his cheeks until he was a respectably hidden distance away from Crowley.

* * *

Aziraphale left out through Crowley’s front door, his only door to be perfectly honest, and turned past the greenhouse to disappear behind a handful of fruit trees.

All of a sudden, Crowley's blood turned to ice in his veins and a black hole opened up in his chest that sucked his soul from his body. He froze in place and felt like a bucket of cold water doused him, turning all his bravaccio of lion-roaring anger back into the little, shivering mouse of fear.

"Az– Aziraphale?" Crowley’s tongue stumbled at the same time his feet did, suddenly bursting into movement, trying to catch up with the blond. “Aziraphale!” He cried out, rushing to follow, reaching out just like the man had done earlier to grasp his hand and pull him away from the door back into the garden center. Aziraphale kept his head turned away.

“Aziraphale, I’m sorry!” Crowley mumbled, his head moving too quickly for his lips and tongue to keep up with, fumbling the words just as surely as he’d fumbled everything else so far. They'd been dating for four weeks now and Crowley was very careful to never breathe a whisper about his shed. Aziraphale already thought he'd lived in Eve's flat, so he didn't ask questions, and was comfortable enough in their routine that he never requested to see Crowley's place more instead of studying or kissing or getting to the very important part of heavy making out and touching inside his own flat. Not when it was so close to Monmouth's and so easy to pretend Crowley only came over to tutor him and whoops they've gotten carried away. 

Sometimes, it made Crowley a bit sick to his stomach to notice those sorts of things, at how easy it was to make others pull the wool over their own eyes, so that he could truthfully say he hadn't done a thing. And now Aziraphale would know, he’d see what Crowley had misled him to think and would know the truth about how very little Crowley deserved _any_ of his attention or lov– care. 

Crowley’s hip ached and burnt in the throbbing way damaged flesh did years after, and he could barely stand upright but forced himself to anyway because this was _important._ If he didn’t convince Aziraphale not to walk away from him now—all the wild winds of the void shrieking cacophonies in his chest screamed—if he didn’t convince Aziraphale not to leave him even if he’d be a fool to stay with someone like Crowley, then he’d lose the man forever. He just _knew_ it in his bones and in the way he knew Junior loved him the way snakes could and the way he knew sometimes what plants needed even though he’d never had any formal training and–

Crowley’s thoughts spiraled and he still felt like he wasn’t attached to his body, save by the pain in his hip that felt like a burning brand of _nevergoodenough_ seared past his skin until it melted and dripped down his leg, a fiery pain. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, angel.” He pleaded, wishing he had the ability to force himself to his knees so that Aziraphale knew he _meant_ it.

Aziraphale pulled his hand out of Crowley’s and the loss of it was like losing some integral part of himself. Crowley bit back a sharp whine of distress with years of practice behind his teeth, locking his throat up from any traitorous sounds escaping. A hard-won habit. Last time he’d cried in front of someone... he’d not been able to walk right ever since.

“Crowley, I just–” Aziraphale huffed and ran his hand through the downy curls, “Alright. You’re sorry. I’m sorry, too.”

Crowley staggered three steps, to the outside of the greenhouse where he could lean against the thick panes, swallowing heavily and feeling not unlike he’d walked over his own grave on his way to the gallows. Was this what it was like watching your own life fall apart, knowing it could have been prevented and you could have been _happy_ , if only you weren’t so fucking stupid? Crowley would have said he’d already known that feeling if someone had asked him before this moment, but now he was sure of it, surer than he’d ever been that he’d hit complete and utter rock bottom.

He could feel the bags under his eyes deepen as he ducked his head but looked up at Aziraphale, ceding the higher position like whatever animal instincts so many years of hierarchy and fights had beaten into him commanded.

“Let me make it up to you, Aziraphale, angel.” Crowley’s hands unfurled in front of him, palms up in supplication and pleading clear in his trembling voice. “Let me take you out, like we planned, you’ll like it, I promise. Just a picnic, special like you wanted. Please, angel, just let me–”

Aziraphale held up a hand to stop him and Crowley shut his mouth so fast his teeth clicked and he nicked his tongue with his incisors. “Crowley, you can’t just… do all this.” Aziraphale hummed worriedly, at a true loss for words for the first time since Crowley had met him. A chance, maybe.

Crowley stepped forward, hands still up and out until he could gently cup at Aziraphale’s elbows in something like an embrace without holding the man anywhere he didn’t want to be. That Aziraphale didn’t immediately pull away was a temporary balm to Crowley’s worry until he realized that Aziraphale was shaking too. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, angel. I didn’t mean to yell, I didn’t expect you,” Crowley murmured soothingly, modeling half-remembered relationships he’d seen on the telly or heard about second hand. He was supposed to apologize, for getting angry, he shouldn’t have, it was fine though, _it’d be fine_ , Crowley reassured himself. Aziraphale was reasonable, he’d been startled and he shouted, shouldn’t have done that, it’d be fine.

“I think, perhaps,” Aziraphale said hesitantly, looking away from Crowley’s face and down to the side. “I think I should just go. I wouldn’t want to… Well, it might be best that I go.”

“No, no, no, angel, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you–” Crowley was cut off with a sigh and Aziraphale stepped back, out of his reach.

“Crowley, I should go,” Aziraphale said, firmly.

“Alright, whatever you want,” Crowley replied quietly, trying not to sound as heartbroken as he was. Stiff upper lip, there we are, nothing to be done about it just now. “At least let me drive you home, or anywhere you like.”

Aziraphale paused and his eyes flicked up to meet Crowley’s for only a split second—and with sudden clarity Crowley realized he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses—looked away in what seemed like mild disgust. “I can’t, Crowley. Not right now, it’s…. It’s too fast for me.”

“Oh.” Crowley said. _I pushed too far, asked for too much, and this is the beginning of the end of us,_ he thought, wishing wildly that the breaking of a heart was more audible than it was. At least then, perhaps, it might have been satisfying in some way, like autumn leaves when they crunched underfoot.

Aziraphale turned and stepped away again, nothing further to say, and left through the garden center, disappearing into the darkness. Crowley stayed standing until the faint ding of the bell on the door rang as it was opened and shut. And then he fell to his knees, pitching to the side in the cool earth. His hip hurt, but it suddenly felt far more fine than the mangled thing in his chest that ached with loneliness and bitter self-recrimination.

* * *

From the moment Aziraphale settled into the seat across from Professor Haistwell he felt very _watched._ He tried to arrange his tired features into something approaching a neutral expression, but knew he’d failed when Haistwell gestured to the waiter to bring over another teacup. 

“Alright there, Azira?” ens asked, stirring a single sugar into ens own tea. 

Aziraphale sighed heavily, wishing he’d been a bit more on the ball getting out of his flat that morning. He still felt harried from his rush through his morning routine and to the little cafe where they’d agreed to hold their weekly check-in. 

“I’m fine, Professor, just a… it was a long night.” 

It really had been. 

He still thought he was right about not continuing to be around Crowley. He’d been furious and confused, hurt that his attempts to comfort were so unwanted and embarrassed that he’d misjudged what Crowley wanted from him so badly. It _stung_ to know his touch was so undesired that—

No, he shouldn’t dwell. He was here and Haistwell was patiently waiting for him to elaborate, one brow raised in question. 

“Crowley and I, uh, fought, I suppose.” Oh, he hated the way that sounded when said aloud. Half over-serious and dire, half petty and dramatic. He took a sip of scaldingly hot tea, caught Professor Haistwell’s concerned look, and quickly swallowed, wincing at the burn down his throat. 

“It wasn’t serious,” he paused and reconsidered. “Or, no, I suppose it was. But, not dire? Is there a difference between serious and dire in this context? What I mean is that I’m sure it will all be well, but I was rather upset with him last night. I don’t want you to think—”

Haistwell chuckled, taking a sip of ens own tea. “I understand, Azira. Was this your first fight?” 

Aziraphale nodded miserably. “I’m afraid I might have overstepped a boundary of his without realizing.” 

“You know now?” 

“Oh yes!” He picked at the skin around his thumbnail, “I mean, I’m not entirely sure what the boundary was, but I know it's there. I feel awful about it all.” 

He really did. He still felt shaky from the emotional whiplash. He’d not been ready to lose that feeling of all-consuming contentment, his entire being overwhelmed by the heat in the pit of his stomach and the taste of salt on his lips from the sweat at Crowley’s temple. But, something had shifted and he was catapulted into worry and hurt and the vaguely sick feeling of being sure he’d hurt someone he cared about. The queasy feeling in his gut had yet to dissipate. 

“If he’s worth your time he’ll understand that and you’ll not cross that line again,” Haistwell reassured him. Ens looked around at the cafe and then back at Aziraphale. “How do you feel about getting away from campus for a bit? I don't have to teach until later and I’d love to be around real people for a bit.” 

That drew a smile to Aziraphale’s face, despite his worries. “Are we not real people, professor?” 

Haistwell flapped one hand. “Of course we aren’t, you know that. We make our careers restoring books, who does that?” 

Aziraphale was outright grinning now, the warm sensation of knowing Haistwell cared about him suffusing his entire being (no matter that ens shouldn’t, ens _did_. It was baffling and strange and he didn’t often know what to do with that care but Haistwell didn’t seem to expect him to know what to do with it). 

“I suspect we do.” 

“But, you’re not sure, so I’m right.” Haistwell stood from ens seat and tossed a few crumpled bills onto the table to cover their tab. “Come on. I was supposed to have a faculty meeting this morning that was going to make me miss it, but a good friend has a charity event and she could always use more hands.” 

Aziraphale scooped up his bag and hurried to catch up. 

* * *

“What are you doing here? Something happen to the boy?” 

Aziraphale looked up from the nametag he was filling out with his name and pronouns (“Azira” for everyone’s ease and because they were in the parking lot of a church and he didn’t feel like having the “isn’t that an angel?” conversation all morning) to see Eve standing there with her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. 

He blinked. 

“Eve!” He greeted, “Good morning! You look lovely today.” It was true, while there was something deeply disconcerting about seeing her outside of her work clothes, curly hair pulled into a loose bun and apron filled with the tools of her trade, she was a beautiful woman and looked just as at home in these clothes as she did in the other. He liked the way her hair, now free, surrounded her head in a dark grey cloud. It, combined with the gauzy floral top and pale jeans, made her look far gentler than he was used to. 

Her question registered and he flushed hotly. “He’s fine, as far as I know.” He peeled the name tag from its backing and placed it on his chest. “I didn’t, uh, I didn’t stick around very long last night. I’m not sure if you—”

“I heard. You two were loud enough to wake half of London.” 

Aziraphale’s flush darkened. “Apologies,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to— I mean, that wasn’t what I wanted.” 

Eve smiled gently at him. “I know,” she said. “I didn’t realize he hadn’t told you about the shed. I wouldn’t have told you to go if I knew. I’m going to talk to him about it when I get home. He was awake when I left, trying to get that snake of his to eat.” 

Aziraphale nodded. “Can you,” he paused and swallowed, “Can you tell him I asked after him? I’m not sure he wants to hear from me just yet, but I’ve been… worried.” 

Her smile softened even further. “I know you have.” She patted his shoulder, “You look like hell.” 

Aziraphale chuckled a little wetly, sniffing back all the emotions of the previous night once more. He felt Haistwell approach from where ens had been parking the car. 

“Oh, this is Professor Dar—”

“Darby!” Eve lit up, a massive smile crossing her face, “I thought you had a faculty meeting?” 

“Eve, darling.” Aziraphale watched, feeling a bit shell shocked, as Professor Haistwell stepped past him and wrapped Eve in a tight hug. 

“Wait,” Eve sad, pulling back a bit, “This isn’t your— Oh holy fuck. We’re idiots, Darby!”

Professor Haistwell looked at Aziraphale and then Eve and ens eyes widened. “Oh for the love of— We really are.” 

“You never said his name!” 

“You called yours Anthony!” 

Aziraphale blinked, realizing they were talking about him and Crowley. 

“Pardon me, but—?”

“I cannot believe we’re so bloody—”

“—just the dumbest!” 

A gentle hand tapped Aziraphale’s shoulder. He turned to see a whipcord lean young woman with a tentative smile. “They’ll be at this all morning,” she said, “If you’d like, I can show you what still needs setting up?” 

Aziraphale nodded, “That would be lovely, thank you. I’m Azira.” 

“Helen,” she took his proffered hand. “We’re raising money for a foodbank with a silent auction. Though I’m sure you’ve heard all about it from Anthony.” 

“Why would he have talked about it?” Aziraphale felt quite as if he was being buried by revelations. 

“His car is always one of the top bid items. He lets the winner take it for an evening.” 

Aziraphale paused. Crowley loved that car. 

“He _lets_ someone else drive the Bentley?” He thought about the dogged way Crowley had pushed his own body, heedless of injuries when the car was damaged, determined to get her back to peak condition as soon as possible. That thought led to thoughts of the way Crowley’s thigh had felt beneath his hands so he quickly turned away from it.

Helen laughed. “Well, there’s a binder of rules and a very specific area they’re allowed to take it in.” 

Ah, yes, that sounded more like Crowley. The last little bit of anger Aziraphale had been harboring melted away in the face of Crowley giving up something he cared for so much for charity. 

“He’s a good man,” he said quietly. 

Helen shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, he’s not really involved past that. A lot of our events happen on church grounds and he claims he’ll spontaneously combust if he stays longer than it takes to pick up Eve.”

That… also sounded like Crowley. 

“Yes, he can be a bit dramatic.” 

“Just a bit.” They arrived at a table surrounded by volunteers in matching t-shirts. Helen scooped up a list, running one manicured nail down it. “Hmm, how about you man the pens and random questions in the big-ticket area? That’s where Anthony’s car is, so you can keep an eye on the bids for him.” 

Aziraphale agreed and set to work, soon entirely lost in the hustle and bustle of the event, his own worries a faded memory. 

As the morning began to wind down, Aziraphale made one final circuit of the parking lot, checking that each of the auction tables still had pens and didn’t need new bidding sheets. He’d spotted Eve and Darby a few times over the course of the morning, each wrapped up in their own work but clearly happy around each other. He idly entertained the thought that they might be more than friends, but trying to think about Haistwell in those terms gave him a bit of a shiver, like thinking about his parents in bed. Except somehow worse.

He had just paused to inspect the high bid on a prop from some scifi show he’d not watched (time travel had never been his preferred genre) when he heard a familiar voice a few rows over. 

“I’m telling you Suraj, this is the car we keep getting reports about.” Aziraphale leaned to the side, looking for…. There! In front of the glossy photo of the Bentley stood the two police officers who’d taken Crowley into the station. Aziraphale’s good mood curdled. 

How dare they? Crowley was just trying to live his life, _how dare they?_ He wanted to march right over there and give them what for but knew that would likely only make Crowley’s dealings with them worse. 

“Come on, Bill,” Officer Suraj said, rolling his eyes so obviously even Aziraphale could see it. “We’re here to check in on the Barantrum, not chase ghosts and conspiracy theories.” 

“As if your little pet gang theory isn’t all ghosts,” Officer Bill snapped. But, he dropped it and followed, with only a single glance back at the Bentley’s picture. 

Aziraphale watched them go, feeling weak and upset and very much wishing he could pick up the phone and call Crowley without feeling like he was intruding on the other man. 

He really wanted to hear his boyfriend’s voice. 

* * *

“Are slugs homeless snails?” 

“They can’t be, stupid, snails grow their shells. Everyone knows that.” 

“Actually, not everyone knows that, it’s not a very common fact at all.” 

“Everyone _smart_ knows that.” A thump followed by scuffling and muffled protests. 

“But, if they grow their shells, where do they get the hard stuff? They don’t have bones.” 

“Even if they did, they wouldn’t grow the shell from their bones, that’s absurd!”

“Why do you look like that?” 

Crowley pressed his head harder into the cheap linoleum countertop in front of him, trying to exert enough pressure that either his migraine went away or his skull caved in, either sounded just aces really. At least if the headache went away he’d have a few spare braincells to focus on the accounting laid out in front of him. He needed to try and get it all in order soon so Eve could get it off to her friend who prepared their taxes in time. Normally it was a task he enjoyed, happy to be able to work on something so ‘adult’ without feeling like an idiot because he couldn’t blessed read the words. But, his head hurt so badly that even the numbers swam.

“Mr. Crowley?” Cold, damp fingers poked at the place where his shirt rode up, startling him into an upright position. 

“Fucking _what?”_ he snarled, squinting against the light. The person was vaguely preteen shaped and, given that he could hear the argument about snails growing progressively worse, he assumed it was Adam. 

“Sorry for waking you,” Adam said, stooping to pull a few dog biscuits from the plastic bin on the food by Crowley’s feet. “But, your hand was like this,” he held up one fist, clenched so tightly his knuckles had turned white, “and you were groaning so I didn’t think you were asleep.” 

Crowley stared at him for longer than he knew was comfortable before managing to scrape and spackle a few words together. 

“Wasn’t asleep.” He sighed and scrubbed one hand down his face, “Didn’t sleep last night actually.” 

“That’s not good for you,” Adam said immediately, “It’ll stunt your growth, my mom _and_ dad both say that. I don’t trust what they say when it’s just one, because you’re supposed to verify your sources. But, they both say that.” 

Crowley was tired enough that Adam’s baffling logic almost made sense. Ugh. He really was a disaster. “Yeah, it can.” He stood and, bracing one hand on the counter to keep his balance while his hip adjusted to being weight-bearing once more, ruffled Adam’s hair. “It’s good advice, kid. Lucky thing, I’m already grown and I don’t want to get any taller. My trousers wouldn’t fit very well, for one.” 

Adam nodded seriously, as if trousers fitting would be the biggest problem Crowley might be facing. “They also said it can lead to dying young and alone and surrounded by more cats than is entirely normal.” 

Crowley snorted. He’d never met Adam’s father, but his mother had brought the boy by a few times when the weather was too bad to walk and he’d already planned to meet his friends and it sounded like exactly the sort of advice she would give. 

“Well, good thing I don't want to live that long,” he muttered, too quietly for Adam to hear. Then, louder, “She’s right about that one too, bud. I didn’t mean to stay up all night, just, ah couldn’t sleep.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

A tendril of fondness sprouted in Crowley’s chest. He felt like shit, lower than shit, for how he’d made Aziraphale feel but it was harder to be quite so mad at himself when there was a kid there trying to be his therapist. 

“I’m fine, kid.” He’d give his left leg for espresso right now, but he’d already had three and every time he thought about climbing the stairs to Eve’s flat his hip throbbed and his mind filled with the nervous, worried face Aziraphale had made that night they shared over Eve’s kitchen table. 

Unbidden, the other words that he’d said that night floated across Crowley’s mind, “I’m not especially attracted to washed up.” 

Well. 

It was good that they’d figured that all out then. There was no way Aziraphale could see him as anything but washed up given– Even in his thoughts he shied away from thinking about what he must have looked like when Aziraphale opened the door. It was done, why linger on his humiliation. 

Aziraphale’s eyes had shone with tears as he turned to leave, as he’d walked from the garden center without a backward glance. 

Great, he thought, that was a _much_ better thing to think about. 

He’d be fine without the espresso. It was only another six hours before he could reasonably close shop for the day. He’d stayed up longer and done more physical things in that time before. 

“Come on,” he beckoned Adam forward, “I’ve got a jar of pennies with your names on them if you help me weed.” 

“Pennies?” 

Crowley looked over to where Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale were seated on upturned pots, already looking the sort of grubby that only preteens could ever seem to curate. Adam immediately joined them, pushing at Brian until the other boy scooted over enough for them to share a large pot. They were watching Crowley with rapt attention, even Pepper’s habitually doubtful expression looked curious. 

“Uh, yeah,” Crowley said, thinking rapidly. He really did have a jar of loose change, though it made something in his gut curdle to think about removing it from the packed bag beneath his bed and using the coins for something so frivolous. But, he had to choose and right now his hip wouldn’t tolerate weeding. “One penny for each root bulb you bring me. Weeds only. Two pennies for each snail or slug you drop in that bucket.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the small white bucket he used to store Junior’s meals. It was already fairly well stocked, the cool weather had had the snake reluctant to eat these last few weeks, but it never hurt to be prepared. 

The kids exchanged a flurry of looks, mouthing things and making hand gestures Crowley was far too tired to attempt to parse. While he waited he walked in a slow circle around the area, looking for Junior. As always in the non-summer months, there were a number of heat lamps set up around the garden center, providing little spots of warmth where Junior was more likely to be found. 

“Hey, bud,” he whispered when he found the little snake coiled in a tight ball under the heat lamp closest to the little missing glass panel that served as his entrance into the hothouse. The snake did not respond and when he leaned in close he could hear the quiet rasp of a tiny, snakey snore. Despite his foul mood and exhaustion, Crowley felt the tension around his brows release a bit. It was hard to stay upset when Junior was around. 

Slowly, he reached out and brushed one fingertip down the snake’s cool spine. When there was no response he did it again. “Come up, Junior, you gotta wake up. The kids are here and I need help supervising them.” 

Junior’s tongue flickered out and a little more of the tension in Crowley softened. He watched as Junior uncoiled and raised his head, looking soft in that undefinable way that only someone waking from sleep could. ~~He’d hoped to get to see Aziraphale looking like that at least once more.~~

He slid one hand under the bulk of Junior’s body and lifted him, settling him around his shoulders and smiling when he felt the tickle of a tiny tongue against his pulse point. “Good morning to you too,” he said, “Now, come on, let’s check in on if the Union has come to an agreement.” 

“We’ll do it,” Adam announced, “But for-”

“We want three pennies for slugs,” Pepper cut in. 

“Because they’re slimy,” Brian said, very seriously. “We’ll accept two pence for snails though.” 

Adam nodded, “Yes, that. Also, we want Universal Anti-Stickerbur Care.” 

Crowley forced the smile that threatened the corner of his lips away. Union indeed. Those pamphlets he’d slipped Adam about organizing were having an effect. 

“I can agree to those terms.” He settled back, leaned against the wall of the main shop where he could hear the front door open and keep an eye on the kids as they began to hunt through the rows. 

Slowly, their cheerful calls and the competition they’d struck up faded away as he drifted, lost in the feeling of the warm sun on his face despite the chill in the air and the smooth shift of scales across the aching muscles of his neck. 

“Do you think he’ll forgive me, Junior?” he asked after a bit, unable to keep the worry in any longer. 

Junior slid further along his neck, moving upward and around his ear, investigating his two-day-old braid. 

“Don’t get stuck again, bud. And like, look, I know I fucked up. I pushed him too hard, too fast. I said awful shit” He sighed and rubbed the heel of his hands into his eyes, “I just— I can’t not do that, huh? God, fuck me. He’s better off just staying gone. No one to push him into things he doesn’t want. And really,” Junior reached the top of his head and started poking about, “What should I expect? No, Aziraphale, we can’t do anything else on your amazingly comfortable couch. I know we just slept in the same bed and I’m obviously hard, but nope! We gotta stop because I’m an anxious fucking mess and don’t want to mess anything up.” 

Junior lost his grip and Crowley caught him before he could slide too far, offering him one of the large pockets of his pants as a nap spot. 

“How can I be upset when he’s just respecting that?” 

The problem was that it didn’t feel like Aziraphale was simply respecting Crowley’s request that they slow things down physically. 

_I’m not especially attracted to washed up._

What if it had all been a convenient excuse to take a step back? Aziraphale was… he was everything Crowley knew he’d never be, could never be. They’d only been officially dating for such a short time, but they’d known each other long enough for Aziraphale to recognize that Crowley wasn’t— that he couldn’t be what Aziraphale deserved. 

The more he thought about it, the more it felt like Aziraphale had been saying that he wanted to stop altogether because Crowley had pushed him too far. And really, what did he expect? They’d fought and what did Crowley do? Ask to take him on a _date? For a drive?_

“You really did it this time,” he told himself, “Fucked it all up, probably permanently. Aziraphale is never going to want to—”

“Oh, how charming,” the low voice drawled from behind him, “A garden center _and_ a back-alley therapy center. Tell me, Crawley, what _are_ your rates?” 

Crowley grit his teeth and turned to face his least favorite customer. “Hullo, Mr. Avgerinós,” he said. He felt suddenly hollowed out. The embarrassment of having been caught talking to himself was a bridge too far and all his emotions were locked away behind glass, not to be brought out for fear they might get mussed. “How may I help you today?” He hesitated for a moment, but was just too tired to try and play the polite-customer-service-rep game and also keep anything of his plants back today. “We have a few new orchids you might like.” 

Lucien’s smile was a jagged slash across his handsome face. Just before he spoke, Crowley caught sight of Adam vaulting over one of the rows of flowers. A strange look crossed Lucien’s face, something that Crowley did not like at all. Lucien made him feel terrible, queasy and shaky and he absolutely hated the idea of this man being in the same space as the kids. 

“In fact,” Crowley said, forcing his tired body into motion, “I’ve one just inside to show you.” There really was an orchid inside, but well… he’d been hoping to take it over to Aziraphale’s flat. The pale blue petals had the most perfect wavering stripes in delicate gold and white and it was all Crowley could do to not picture the pale blue button-up Aziraphale favored and the white-gold curl of his hair against its collar. But, Lucien’s eyes were lingering on Adam and Crowley couldn’t— he wouldn't allow that. 

With his broadest customer service smile he spread his arms and herded Lucien into the main shop. 

As soon as they were inside, he closed the door firmly, only able to relax again when the first _click_ of the latch catching reverberated up his arm. 

“So nice that you were able to get some rest after what I’m sure was a busy night,” Lucien said, his voice layered with meanings Crowley was sure he was meant to understand but was far too tired to manage. 

“Er, yeah,” he muttered, “So restful.”

Crowley tried to collect his thoughts into something adjacent to logic or reason (hell, he’d settle for ‘human’ right now). It felt as if he was swimming through treacle, desperate for a gasp of air and finding only thick, sickly sweet sludge all around him. 

“Mr. Avgerinós,” he managed, “I’m not sure—” The front door opened, admitting Eve followed by what appeared to be a sentient roll of tweed wearing spectacles and a he/him lapel pin. The man looked vaguely familiar in the way of all Eve’s friends; Crowley was sure he’d seen him at one of her charity events or perhaps in one of the dozens of pictures on her mantle. Crowley dismissed him as unimportant next to the overwhelming need to be away from Lucien. He could feel Junior shifting in his pocket and reached down to lay a quelling hand on the snake, suddenly afraid without reason of what might happen were he to emerge just then.

He caught Eve’s eye and looked from her to the blue-and-gold orchid on the counter and then to Lucien, who appeared to be glaring viciously at Eve’s friend. Eve tilted her head to the side, mouthing, “You okay?” 

Crowley shrugged and took a step back. 

“Eve’ll help you, Mr. Avgerinós,” he said, “She’s the expert on this one.” 

Then, before anyone could say anything else, he made his escape back to the rest of the garden center. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of skippable section: Crowley and Aziraphale fight. Crowley is afraid due to his own issues and history and reacts poorly to being woken and realizing that Azirapahale has seen where he lives. He is frenetic and Aziraphale thinks that while Crowley wouldn't hurt him, he *could*. They argue and Crowley says hurtful things before Aziraphale walks away and he realizes he messed up. Crowley tries to apologize and salvage their date, but Azirpahale is upset and says that it is too fast for him to go from arguing to romance like that. He leaves.
> 
>   
> Just a head's up that we're headed into the climactic stuff here folks! A lot of threads are coming together and we're really excited to see plot points we came up with back in December finally on the page <3 That being said there's a lot of heavy stuff in the pipeline and its really important that yall check out the chapter warnings going forward. We'll also be updating the tags. Anything that's a trigger will be described in general terms at the end of the chapter and you'll have the words to skip those sections.  
> 


	16. Of Dark Mirrors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have updated the tags for pet death. And, as always, for heavy things like this we have included ways to skip over it and a summary in the endnotes. Please make sure that you take care of yourselves, and if you need to skip it there's absolutely no shame in it. It's paired with the disassociation mentioned below and is touched on in other places but the discovery of pet death is skippable entirely.
> 
> WARNING: There is pet death in this chapter, heavy disassociation (Crowley), and violence (a very minor, quick gang fight with Crowley).
> 
> * * *
> 
> In text we have written out the emoji :like this: so that any text/screen reading software can read the fic as accurately as possible without losing some of the intention in translation.
> 
> That being said, the emoji used in the fic are below:
> 
> In Aziraphale's contacts, Crowley is [Crowley 🌌]  
> In Crowley's contacts, Aziraphale is [🐏📚]

“Junior?” Crowley glanced over at the sleeping snake from his sink, holding his toothbrush in one hand. “Wake up, young man. We’ve a long day ahead and you’ve been slacking recently.”

Junior did not move, clearly still soundly asleep, the lazy sod. At least he wasn’t snoring.

Crowley rolled his eyes and went back to brushing his teeth. He spat into the metal basin and picked up the chipped glass he kept by the sink, filling it with lukewarm water, swilling it around his mouth and spitting before drinking the rest in one sip. He was always desperately thirsty when he woke. The last few nights that he’d fallen asleep at Aziraphale’s flat he’d woken to a cool glass of water waiting for him. The gesture warmed something deep in his chest because he knew all too well that Aziraphale was a miserably terrible morning person, resentful of anything that stole precious second of sleep from him, but he still took the time to fill a glass for Crowley before collapsing into sleep.

The thought ached against the coarse edges of the unresolved words they’d flung at each other.

He’d apologize soon. He had to. Cared too much about Aziraphale to do anything but. It was just, well, _Crowley_ was the one who’d said the worse things. He was the one who started the fight and who’d hurt Aziraphale. He couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t his right to reach out first. He didn’t want to impose or force himself on anyone who didn’t want him around.

“I’m a fucking disaster, Junior,” he muttered, scrubbing one hand roughly down his face. Junior didn’t respond, but then, he never did. “Yeah,” Crowley went on, yanking a dark shirt on to cover the aching bruises left over from pissing Hastur off a few nights back, “I know, I know. It’s the asshole’s job to apologize first. But, what if I ruined it?”

He thought back to the very first days, when he’d thought all Aziraphale wanted was a tutor (and when, if he was honest, Crowley had been just a bit desperate to get laid). He’d been charmed by that first shy smile, completely _gone_ the moment Aziraphale tried to say he was forgettable.

Crowley couldn’t stand to have lost Aziraphale, not yet, not without at least trying to make it better.

He threw himself down on his narrow bed, reaching out to run one finger down Junior’s cool spine even as he pulled his phone from his pocket.

[Friday 5:54 am]  
Hey. I fucked up before.

[Friday 5:54 am]  
Would you like to grab dinner tonight? I’d  
really like to see you

[Friday 5:54 am]  
If you want I mean

[Friday 5:55 am]  
You dont have to answer

[Friday 5:55 am]  
I’m sorry. This was stupid

Crowley worried, of course. That was just a core personality trait at this point, anxiety. And he _knew_ Aziraphale wasn't awake, and he _knew_ the man loved his sleep for the simple fact that his bed was astonishingly decadent, but it felt just like being ignored. So, he picked up Junior, pocketed his phone, and marched to start work in the greenhouse. And did his best not to check the phone every ten seconds.

Luckily, working with his hands always helped the hours melt away.

[:sheep: :books: Friday 8:29 am]  
No! No! I was asleep. I would love to see  
you.

[Friday 8:31 am]  
Really? You dont have to say yes. I was a  
dick.

[:sheep: :books: Friday 8:31 am]  
Really. Only, I’ve plans already tonight and  
I’m afraid I can’t move them.

[Friday 8:32 am]  
Oh.

[Friday 8:32 am]  
I mean, that’s alright! It’s short notice  
anyway

[:sheep: :books: Friday 8:34 am]  
If you wanted, you could come with me?  
It’s a terribly boring event, but I have to  
attend.

[Friday 8:35 am]  
Can't be boring if you’re there

[Friday 8:35 am]  
Oh christ, that was so fucking cheesy. I’m  
sorry

[Friday 8:36 am]  
I’ll be there. Send me the details?

Crowley tossed his phone onto the counter. The morning weeding and chores had passed in a haze as he alternated between focusing on his chores and checking for Aziraphale’s response.

The gotta-buy-plants-before-work-for-some-reason crowd had begun to peter out, leaving only a sole lookie-loo poking around the assorted concrete figurines section that both Crowley and Eve denied was their biggest moneymaker (neither liked to think about what it meant about the people of London’s taste that poorly painted concrete fairies and frogs were such a hot ticket item). Crowley took a few minutes to stretch, pressing his feet flat to the floor and bending at the waist, running his hands down the back of his legs until they just began to burn and then staying there for a ten count before slowly uncurling.

He’d tried to be a bit better these last few weeks about this, annoyed by how many bad days he’d had in a row at the beginning of the month. He wasn’t sure it was helping, but it didn’t hurt anything. Plus, Eve kept giving him approving, proud looks that made his chest feel tight and his cheeks warm when she caught him at it, and he liked that feeling.

The lookie-loo paused next to a particularly awful fairy curled up on a toadstool, cooing and pulling out her phone to take pictures.

“Oh that is just darling!” she cried. “I _have_ to show Shareen!” Her phone began to ring and she rushed to answer it (for which Crowley was grateful, the ringtone was something high pitched and grating and Crowley seriously considered inventing time travel so he could go back and scold past-Crowley and past-Eve for their terrible lack of foresight in stocking the awful little statues).

“Ring the bell if you need me. Urgent, er, watering to do.” He escaped out the back door to the peace of the outdoors. “Did we get put in a concrete fairy fetishist newsletter?” he asked the air.

“Three of them actually,” Eve said, rounding the side of the hothouse, her thick leather gloves in hand and her hair pulled back under a sun-faded bandana.

He groaned. “Why? You terrible hag, why did you do that to us?” Eve did not deign to explain herself to him and instead continued on through to the shop. Crowley winced when he heard high pitched cooing escape the open door before it swung shut. “Thank who-fucking-ever we’re not like that, Junior,” he said before pausing and blinking. The little snake was not curled up on his customary mid-morning sunning rock.

“Junior?” he called, looking around, thinking perhaps he’d missed him somewhere.

Not in the hothouse or the greenhouse, all his perches were empty. He searched through the little paths the snake frequented around the garden center and even peeked into the orchids, thinking Junior might have gotten a wild hair to go where he knew he wasn’t supposed to go.

Nothing.

* * *

“You’re telling me you didn’t know?” Anathema snorted into her drink, sending a light spray of foam up onto the tip of her nose.

“How was I meant to know?” Aziraphale tried to take a bite of his scone and look indignant at the same time and rather failed to do both, sending Anathema into further peals of laughter at his expense.

“Azira, _everyone_ knows tumbleweeds aren’t alive!” She gasped for air, eyes sparkling, and Aziraphale found himself feeling very grateful she’d spoken to him that day in the shop. He’d been awfully lonely these last few weeks while he and Crowley hadn’t been speaking, and Anathema was a delight.

“Clearly not everyone, as I didn’t know.” He brushed crumbs from his chest. “It’s not like they’re a thing here!”

“But they’re giant bushes! That roll! How could that be alive?”

“I— What I mean is— Hmm, perhaps they’re air plants? Crowley was telling me about those, they don’t have roots or anything.” He sat back in his chair, sure he’d found the answer that would stop her ribbing him.

“Air plants are the size of my hand!” She held up her (alarmingly petite) hand to demonstrate.

“Ah,” he said. “Well then.” He wisely didn't mention that he'd thought tumbleweeds were about that size in the first place, considering how offended the American desert-dweller had been at the implication.

* * *

[skip pet death]

Crowley didn't remember most of the day after his conversation with Aziraphale. There was a single notification light blinking on his phone, but he couldn't make himself check it. It was probably from Aziraphale, and normally he'd be scrambling at the first sight of a reply, especially after asking for the details on something, for a way to see him next.

Or at least, he would have any other day.

But just now, he couldn't make himself move or think or do anything except let the terrible silence of the universe drown him.

Junior was in his hands and if he tried, he could almost pretend the snake was asleep. Snakes were always cold, especially because he'd been hidden in the shadows in the corner by the bucket of slugs, covered by leafy plants in pots on shelves, instead of in the sun. Crowley had found him, coiled up and cold. He drifted along his thoughts, peacefully drawn along like they were only so many waves in a lazy river, only half-aware of himself and where they led him.

It had looked like he was asleep.

Crowley had run his finger along Junior's head and down his back until it curled underneath his head, and when he got no response, he’d tried again. And again, and again. The worry that had begun to coil around him when he noticed Junior wasn’t out and about had tightened then. Junior’s scales had been dull, but that always happened before a shed. He’d been moving slow, but it had been winter! Snakes were slow in the winter. But then, what if it wasn't either of those things?

And now he knew.

It wasn’t those things.

He scooped Junior into his palms, the creature didn't move at all, lolling around in his hand, which ripped a dry sob out of his chest. The moment Junior didn't wake up was the moment Crowley stepped out of his body and begun to feel like a ghostly image superimposed over an empty body, all his reactions coming a moment too late, all his thoughts sluggish, fighting their way to the surface through the tarry molasses his head had melted into.

And then his phone rang. For a while, until it stopped ringing and Crowley finally realized what was happening. Oh. He'd missed a call. Maybe it was Aziraphale. The blinking light on his phone still shone on the counter, across the room. Maybe he should get up. Go and look.

One step forward, and then another, until he was stumbling with his palms up, curled around his snake, as if protecting him from the wind was any use at all now. Idly, slowly, Crowley thought that he'd much prefer if Junior was wrapped around his neck like he used to.

Junior always preferred his neck or his pocket; being carried made him twitchy.

The phone rang again, right as he stepped up to the counter, and he moved to reach for it, suddenly befuddled by his lack of free hands. What– what was he supposed to do? He _couldn't_ let go of Junior, he didn't know why just that he couldn't, something bad would happen if he did. Didn't matter what it was, just _something bad_ and then something _worse_ would happen because something worse _always_ follows something bad. And then, and then, and then he'd spiral downwards and everything bad would happen and he'd have to leave and Eve would be mad or–

Oh no, Eve. Eve liked Junior too, she'd be sad. Fuck.

_Fuck._

"Ev–" Crowley's voice cracked on the attempt to shout for Eve and it felt like a sign to give up, so he did. It was the easiest option and he didn't really have the energy to try again. Right, the phone, he needed to. Right.

Crowley carefully transferred Junior to a single hand, looping his body around his wrist and then letting his tail lay in the crook of his elbow, his head cradled in his hand. He tucked that arm in close to his chest for extra stability. He blinked blearily when the phone rang again. He should get that…

Picking up the phone, he swiped through the passcode purely out of habit and answered the call. He was sure he was meant to feel some sort of way about all of this, probably should cry a little even, but Crowley only felt numb all the way through. He was an overlay of his own person, piloting his body that moved just a little too slow for the rest of him. Overlays didn’t cry.

"Aziraphale?"

"What kind of pansy name is that?" Ligur growled from the opposite side of the call.

"Oh, nothing I guess," Crowley muttered, cradling the arm not occupied by the phone closer still to his chest.

"What? No, fuck it, nevermind. Meet us at Mortlake in Kew in an hour."

"Us?" Crowley had enough self-preservation left for that question, at least, edging it in somehow before Ligur hung up.

"Me 'n Eric," Liger replied gruffly, hanging up immediately after.

"Eric?" Crowley mumbled to himself, absently patting his cargo pants pocket, unsure if he was supposed to put his phone away yet. Oh, wait, he could, right. Crowley uncurled the snake from his arm and winced at how stiff he was already becoming, coiling the creature into his favorite trouser pocket, and shuffling out towards the greenhouse where Eve was.

[summary in [endnotes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21742480/chapters/60968020#chapter_16_endnotes)]

The notification light blinked again and Crowley shoved up his sunglasses as if it might actually help him see better. Squinting at the phone, he unlocked it once more and read the messages.

[:sheep: :books: Friday 8:52 am]  
Of course, my dear.

[:sheep: :books: Friday 8:53 am]  
I’m very happy I’ll be seeing you.

* * *

Professor Haistwell had told him he could have the day off, and normally Azirpaphale might have taken ens up on that, but he was feeling uncommonly buoyant, spurred ever upward by the promise of seeing Crowley in less than a day. He wanted to ride that feeling and get a bit of work done on his thesis. He always wrote better when he was feeling cheery.

So, instead of taking the morning to laze about after his breakfast with Anathema, Aziraphale saw her to the shop for her shift and then popped back up to his flat for his bookbag and made for campus. The day was gorgeous, one of the first truly pleasant ones of the spring, and he couldn’t help but tilt his head to the sun, closing his eyes as he walked and absorbing the heat. His bookbag bounced against his leg and he hummed a little song, something Crowley had shown him that he couldn’t remember the words to but had enjoyed.

When he arrived on campus, he forwent his cramped office under the stairs for one of the cast iron tables in front of the Athenaeum, settling his worn research journal before him and his to-go cup of tea beside it. Then, he picked up his pen, took a deep breath, and got to work.

* * *

"Eve," Crowley called, walking up to the flat above Eden. The stairs creaked under his feet, the scents of stale espresso grounds and the bloom of jasmine green tea reaching him, mixing in a way that was unique to her kitchen.

"Need something, kid?" Eve asked, humming casually as she gathered up her papers for the day.

"Um, do– do you have a box?" Crowley scratched at his shoulder, looking down and to the side, unwilling to make eye contact. He'd tell her later; she didn't need to deal with this right now. Eve had better stuff to worry about than an errant snake and some not-really-a-kid-anymore street rat, not until she brought it up next. It'd be better all around, probably. And Crowley had staked his life and limb on a ‘probably’ enough times to deem the possibility worth the risk.

"A box? Like a shoebox, or for shipping?" Eve asked before smiling far too sweetly at him. "Gonna send Azira an apology cake?"

"I, um– no?" Crowley stuttered and shoved his glasses impossibly further up his nose until the plastic pads prodded at the inner corners of his eyes, hiding them for sure. "I already apologized. Gonna see 'im later. Do you think I'm supposed to bring cake?"

Eve's smile turned a bit more genuine and soft as she stood. "No, not unless you want to. He'd probably like it though, mentioned that one coffee shop—Mothman's or something—with good cake. But I have an extra box, don't you worry."

And that's why he loved Eve—she didn't ask hard questions like _why_ or press for answers if he didn't want to give any, and that was a large part of why he'd never tried to find another place to live, even though he could probably afford _something_ somewhere else with a bit of a commute in the mornings. She came back with the box, and Crowley took it, distantly proud when his hands didn’t shake. He turned to go before remembering the phone call. “I’ll, uh, need a bit of a long lunch today,” he said, not looking back at her. “If that’s okay?”

Her voice was soft as she replied, “Of course it is.” Crowley knew she was assuming it was to get that apology cake for Aziraphale and, well, Crowley didn't think it prudent to correct her.

He fled back out to his shed and the corner of the shelves behind the slugs where he could nestle Junior in the box, coiled around a pair of Crowley’s softest socks (he was always stealing into Crowley’s discarded socks).

* * *

“Azira?”

He started, surfacing with a blink from the haze of citations and connections—it wasn’t that Reginald Berryworth was _wrong_ so much as he failed to cite the seminal papers that supported his argument, in part because they were written by a woman and a black man and Aziraphale categorically refused to use that man’s work if he could find someone less… awful saying the same things.

There was someone standing in front of him. He thought he’d seen her before, but it wasn’t until she ducked her head and tucked her hair behind her ears that he remembered.

“Oh! You’re Doctor Avgerinos’ student!” He winced. “I mean, I saw you with Doctor Av— Oh bother, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

She smiled at him. “It’s alright,” she said, her voice very quiet as she looked up through her lashes at him. “I’m impressed you remembered me. A lot of people don’t. I’m Beth Li.”

Aziraphale had said something similar the first time they’d met. Crowley had looked so startled. It was such a small moment, but he cradled it close to his heart because it meant the entire world to him; for Crowley to just _assume_ that Aziraphale was as memorable to others as he was to Crowley….

“I don’t think that’s true at all, Ms. Li,” he said, setting his pen down in his notebook and standing to offer her his hand.

“Beth is fine.” She was looking at him a bit more directly now, though her voice was still quiet. “You _are_ Azira, right? I hope I’m remembering right.”

He laughed. “You are. It’s Aziraphale, technically, but Azira is perfectly fine.” A thought occurred to him. “What are you doing on this side of campus?” There were no natural sciences buildings here, as his aching calves always reminded him on the sprint between astronomy and his other lectures.

Beth blushed. “Oh, my, uh, my friend is meeting me at the cafe over there.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m actually late already. But, I saw you and I wanted to apologize. The Professor is awful to you. Everyone in my cohort thinks so.”

Aziraphale’s smile melted a bit. “Oh,” he said, “That’s really very kind of you all. It’s fine though, he’s not required to like me.” He tried to laugh but knew it came out a little false sounding even as Beth shook her head.

“No, we’ve been trying to mention it to him and get him to lay off a bit. I hope it helps. You’re actually doing really well for someone with no background in it!”

 _That was entirely Crowley’s doing,_ Azirpahale thought, pleased to have something to tell the other man when they met.

* * *

Crowley sped to the cemetery in Kew in broad daylight, driving fast enough to get there with a bit of time to spare but not quite recklessly enough to betray his inner turmoil to anyone who might be watching. To be fair, he often had turmoil when dealing with Ligur-and-Hastur specifically. The two of them together were menaces, though separate he'd prefer Ligur's company to Hastur's if he had a choice… Ligur at least was more likely to loom and skulk around and generally make an intimidating nuisance of himself _quietly._ Whereas Hastur liked to think himself a dab hand at leading questions and pestering. He wasn’t wrong when it came to pestering at least. In Crowley’s opinion, there was not a man alive more simultaneously irritating and aggressive than Hastur.

So, he was early by a couple of minutes. He sauntered over to P.L. Stainton’s stone, a plain thing with more chips in it than the date of death should warrant. He didn't think anyone in the Baratrum knew any Stainton; the cemetery was just the place to meet up when you're young and edgy and trying not to spend money. So, that's what they did in school; they smoked and drank and made Crowley a lookout while they shook people down for pocket money or fought in parking lots lit by dusty street lamps. And they visited the cemetery at night, right here, in row 204, by Stainton, whoever the poor sod was.

Lighting a cigarette he knew he shouldn't be smoking—he honestly rarely did these days unless he was exceptionally stressed, and he was _exceptionally_ stressed today—Crowley loitered around the headstone until he could hear the heavy stomp of Ligur's boots.

"Azathoth," Ligur greeted and Crowley whirled around on his heel, pivoting with a grace he'd trained into himself in front of the mirror years ago when the smoking habit had started and it was all about being _cool_.

"Ligur." Crowley replied nonchalantly, going so far as to lean his hip against the gravestone of Poor Lad Stainton. "Where's your worse half?"

"Breakin' in his new gloves." Ligur shot back just as quick, and Crowley couldn't keep the jerk of his lip or the hiss behind his teeth at the reminder of Hastur trying out his knuckle dusters and having _far_ too much fun with them if Crowley's ribs had anything to say about it.

"Glad ta hear it," Crowley let the cigarette fall to the lawn and pressed it out into the cool sod underneath his sole. "Wazzis here?"

"Eric." Ligur muttered, wrapping a hand around the kid's nape and pulling him forward. "Cousin, he's _learnin' on the job_ , like it were." Crowley pulled his lips into a sneer at that and stood to his full height. He might be gangly and not look like a whole lot, but he was _taller_ and easily the best loomer of the Baratrum whether he liked it or not. Eric shifted back at the threat Crowley made of himself, but Ligur held him in place with a certain ease that Crowley really fucking hated.

"He's not gonna learn on the job, _mate,_ " Crowley hissed, letting his sunglasses fall down just enough to show his eyes. A habit really, even if he knew Ligur wasn't intimidated by them in the slightest, "He's a _kid_! You don't let fuckin' _kids_ into this fucking mess!"

Crowley stepped forward and there must have been something in his voice or his eyes or his step that made Ligur stand up taller and let go of his kid cousin. "Same age we were." Ligur shrugged, far too casual to be angling for anything other than a fight.

"Aren't you supposed to care about your cousins or whatever, _Emmet?!_ " Crowley accused, "You're gettin' 'em mixed up in all this shit and he's barely even outta secondary, he's a punk, and _you're_ gonna ruin his life!"

It honestly wasn't much of a surprise, if Crowley thought about it—though when had he ever done a whiff of _that_ in his life?—that Emmet "Ligur" Lester sucker punched him right in the sternum. He took no comfort in knowing it had probably hurt Ligur’s hand just as much because, with everything else that had happened so far that day, losing his breath so suddenly was enough to put Crowley on his back foot, stumbling against the headstone. At least, Crowley thought, he'd kept the sneer on his face instead of letting it turn pained. At least like this it didn't seem like he lost so much as he'd been forced to back down to a place he'd already been.

Ligur just stared at him, brows pulled together, casting dark shadows over his eyes which, in the dim light, were visible only as pits. Surely, Ligur’s eyes held all sorts of deep currents, maybe even gentle thoughts or benevolent whims, but all Crowley could ever see in them was the gleeful look he wore when there was violence to be had.

The kid, Eric, though was looking at him like he'd hung the stars. The open adoration left a bad taste in his mouth. He didn't like to think about why yelling at his older cousin on his behalf left him available to admire like that, didn't like to think about kids being as desperate for any sort of approval for existing as he was, and he _really_ didn't like the pangs of thought that buried into the front of his brain about just why something like that might be rare enough to surprise the kid.

And that was that. Challenge lost, Crowley grit his teeth and led them back to the car and regretted every joke about being "a getaway driver _at best_ " that had ever fallen from his cursed tongue. He drove down the M3 and past the M25 to a machinery-for-hire lot in Longcross. Thirty long minutes in the car, silent save for Eric's fidgeting and Queen blaring through the cassette player. Crowley had never had less desire to sing and bop along to _Another One Bites The Dust_ as he did crossing over the M25. At least there was very little traffic.

They pulled into the lot, waved over by someone who honestly didn't look like they worked there, especially not after Ligur nodded at them. But he pulled to a stop, kept the motor running just like Ligur had growled at him to on the way there. There wasn't anyone else there, just the occasional low hum of machinery through concrete walls. Crowley grit his teeth and turned the music down so low it might as well be off, turning his attention to the door cracked open to reveal the inside of the warehouse. Eric had been carrying a bag; it had looked heavy and metal and he was half-surprised not to see it handcuffed to his wrist or something stupid like that. Not that handcuffing anything important to a 16-year-old punk would make much of a difference if someone wanted to take it.

It was silent over the machinery. Up until it wasn't. Crowley growled in frustration, pulled the brake, and left the car idling in neutral before shifting over the bench seat and throwing himself out the passenger door and into the fray. _Fuck, that was a knife!_

"You dumb, fucking, kid!" Crowley shouted, grabbing Eric by the arm, shoulder checking some bastard out of the way of their line to the door and cursing again under his breath as he turned on his heel to throw Eric out the door towards the car and reach for Ligur's coat.

"You wanted a getaway driver? Well ya fucking _got one!_ Now we're gettin' outta here!" Crowley yanked at the jacket and nearly unbalanced Ligur into him as the broader man threw a particularly vicious punch at whoever decided to scuffle with him. Poor fucking bastard. Ligur's fists were like cinder blocks on the best of days.

Ligur ducked to the side and around Crowley with surprising speed, leaving him open to the rather brutal rugby tackle from a guy that'd give Ligur a run for his money. Made out of bricks, him. And Crowley fell to the floor under the man's weight, felt a shift in his chest and a sharp pain which was quickly drowned out by a surge of adrenaline. If there was one thing Crowley was good for, it was wriggling out of situations like his life depended on it, and it might very well have this time.

With a wheezed, "Prefer cricket, me," Crowley writhed out from the man's grasp and followed after Ligur, overtaking him in a flash and jumping through the open door into the driver's seat.

"Get yer fukkin' arse on the seat, Ligur!" He shouted, looking back at the kid to make sure he was buckled in and flooring it as fast as the Bentley could manage out of the cloud of gas fumes it had kicked up idling for those long handful of minutes. His heart pounded in his chest and every beat of it and every bump in the road sent a sharp pain through his ribs. Fuck, probably cracked, but it was fine. It'd be fine. Not much to do about it but fuck off and forget about it and force himself to take deep breaths as much as he could manage…

It took all of ten minutes and a _lot_ of fidgeting for Eric to finally burst out of his shell like a bloody mantis, talking his and Ligur's head off, recounting the fight with excruciating—and terribly inaccurate—detail.

Crowley did his best to curl in on himself and not jostle his rib—ribs? Spine?—as the praise turned a bit too Crowley-flavored for Ligur's taste. Another twenty-something minutes back to Kew and another fifteen beyond that to the drop off point. At least they got what they came for, presumably, since there was now a _different_ bag in Eric's lap and a wad of cash bulging prettily in Ligur's coat pocket.

Focusing on breathing deep and even and forcing himself not to wince or show off any injuries waiting to be exploited by Ligur or anyone else who noticed, Crowley didn't hear a single word Ligur got in edgewise over Eric's uncomfortable hero-worship.

* * *

The doorbell was one of those alarmingly long and discordant ones, echoing long after Aziraphale had stopped pressing the button. He winced but managed to arrange it into something approaching a smile when the door swung wide to reveal Professor Haistwell in a what was, if at all possible given ens’ usual attire, the nerdiest and sharpest thing Azirpahale had ever seen; there was not an inch of ens free of either tweed or tartan. It was… breathtakingly in character and Azirpahale’s fake smile became something much more real. Over the suit, Professor Haistwell wore an apron liberally coated in flour and emblazoned with the words “Deconstruct the Metatextual Meaning of The Cook.”

Ens’ smile was broad as ens spoke, “Aziraphale! Welcome! Come in, come in.”

They stepped into the entryway, pausing long enough for Aziraphale to toe off his shoes by the door, before moving through the den and the formal dining and into the spacious kitchen.

“ _Professor Haistwell_ ,” Aziraphale gasped, alarmed (and more than a little impressed) by the sheer volume of flour strewn about.

Haistwell peered at him and then around at the kitchen, seemingly confused about why ens was being scolded.

“What? I’m making an iced sponge,” ens said slowly, then, with a rueful smile, “Things… may have gone a bit awry.”

“A bit?” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Professor, there’s flour on the ceiling.”

“I’ll admit it got away from me.”

“A bit.”

“A bit.” Haistwell grinned at him. “Now, off with that sportcoat, roll up those sleeves. For aprons I have _Linguists? More like Lameguists_ or _ic gehæmed mid Béowulfe ond á geáfangen þæt bearmcláþ_.”

Aziraphale snorted. “Professor, I _cannot_ wear the second one. Other people who know Old English will be here.”

Haistwell sniffed. “Your loss,” ens said, tossing the apron back over the barstool it had rested on. “Now. We’re making an iced sponge cake and it’s going to knock their socks off.”

Aziraphale eyed the state of the kitchen and his currently pristine clothes before grabbing the _Linguists_ apron.

“Let’s do it, Professor.”

* * *

Crowley arrived back at the garden center exhausted, weary beyond all measure. He wanted to curl up and go to sleep and never wake again (he shoved away the thought that wanted to ask him where that desire came from). But, Eve had left a note saying she took the bus and that he should dress nice but not to worry about being fancy or anything.

It was signed with a heart before her name and he could not stand to look at it.

He used Eve’s bathroom in the flat upstairs to shower and shave quickly, borrowing a bit of her various face care products to try and make himself look a bit less like death warmed over. Then, he dug out an old ace bandage and braced his ribs, sighing in relief as soon as he lowered his arms.

He dried his hair and carded his fingers through it as he walked, naked, down to his shed to dig out something halfway decent to wear. As soon as his shirt was on he wove it into a quick, but neat, braid and tied it off with a rubber band.

Then, he stood in the middle of the shed, rubbing his fingers over each other, trying to empty his mind and think everything all at once and failing to do either. When he managed to make himself take a step, his ribs ached fiercely and he made his way back up to Eve’s flat to take the bottle of pills left over from the accident – rationed out carefully against very likely future pain – and slip it into his jacket.

* * *

“Hmm, no,” Eve reached out and yanked the end of the tie around Aziraphale’s neck, causing the apron to fall forward. “Darby, you _know_ that’s my apron. Have I ever worn another one? Don’t open that mouth if you’re gonna lie to me.”

Aziraphale watched in wonder as Professor Haistwell’s mouth snapped shut. After running into Eve at the charity event two weeks previously, Aziraphale had asked how they knew each other and received a rambling tale about two lovelorn graduate students who spent all their time together. When he’d hesitantly asked if they were still an item, Haistwell had laughed (perhaps a bit too loudly, Aziraphale didn’t think it was an entirely ridiculous question) and clarified; Eve had been deeply and madly in love with the man who would become her husband (apparently named Adam, she nearly refused to date him because of it) and Haistwell enself was in love with ens’ thesis.

Aziraphale hadn’t mentioned it again, but now that he saw them interacting in semi-private he understood why Haistwell had laughed so hard. Eve arrived, patted the side of Aziraphale’s face, and told him Crowley was running a bit late but that he’d be here and then rounded on Haistwell to scold ens about the state of the house with guests arriving so soon.

Ens and Eve fit together like they were meant to be around each other, but there was nothing romantic about it. Like the little people in a cuckoo clock, he thought, watching as Eve tied the top of her repatriated _Linguists_ apron while Haistwell simultaneously tied the waist and explained to her just exactly what they were planning, re: icing the cakes that were cooling on the counter. They moved around each other, knowing exactly where the other would be and how to best support them. Haistwell picked up the bin, Eve was already sweeping the extra flour towards it. Eve scooped the dirty bowls into her hands, Haistwell was already running hot water. Little figures on set tracks and secure for it rather than hemmed in.

Aziraphale wondered what it was like to have someone like that.

What it was like to _fit_ with someone so well.

“When did you two meet?” Aziraphale found himself asking, quite without meaning to.

“You know, I actually don’t remember.” Eve picked up a few strawberry tops and lobbed one at Haistwell, who caught it without looking up. “We were little, Darby’s mum worked during the war and had never quit, so ens was alone a lot and she’d drop ens off with my mum.”

The other graduate students Haistwell supervised had begun to arrive shortly before Eve, and Aziraphale slipped from the kitchen to mingle with them. He didn’t have many chances to see the others, as they were mostly in the thesis stage and rarely overlapped on campus, but he liked their company. It was nice to be around people who completely understood him. The first few spotted the Beowulf apron Eve had foisted upon him and word quickly spread to the rest, eliciting low snickers and companionable commiseration about being caught unawares by their advisor’s questionable humor.

Haistwell informed them that ens’ own advisor would be joining them which sent Aziraphale scrambling to take off the apron and fix his shirt and blazer. Doctor Derrington was brilliant beyond all measure, but also a deeply terrifying woman who always made him feel as if he had a bit of dirt smudged on his nose.

* * *

By the time he arrived at the address Aziraphale had texted him, Crowley felt completely numb. He’d managed to compartmentalize Junior’s death until he arrived back at the garden center and spotted the box out of the corner of his eye while digging for clean pants that didn’t look ridiculous. It had all crashed back down and now his mind was a constant refrain of _should I have noticed? Was I so caught up in my stupid shit that I didn’t see he was sick? Was this my fault?_

And, much quieter, a very small voice asking _was he comfortable? Did I make him happy?_

_Who am I without him?_

He hated himself. Eric’s remembered adulation grated. He wasn’t worth that. Wasn’t worth anything at all. The feeling wasn’t new, but it felt different now. Before, he’d known that there was one being on Earth who preferred him above all others. The steering wheel beneath his hands was cool and just the wrong side of smooth and felt nothing at all like scales and there were suddenly tears pricking at his eyes.

It was just all so _fucking_ much. His hands ached for scales and his nose was filled with the smell of blood and he desperately wanted neither of those things to be _like that_. Crowley threw the Bentley into neutral, let up on the clutch, and yanked at the parking brake letting the engine rumble under the hood for a few moments before sighing heavily and turning the key.

The Bentley fell still under his hands and for a brief moment, he could have sworn there was a large van coming at him from the side, he couldn't look, he couldn't check, he could only tense and grit his teeth hoping it wasn't Ligur with Eric in the seat beside him to drive to the A&E.

That kid didn’t deserve any of this. ( _Had he deserved Junior? What the fuck had he ever done to deserve him?)_

But it was fine, just headlights turning onto the street and into a driveway nearby. It was fine. Except now he was trembling. He gathered his jacket from the backseat, crumpled it up, uncaring of the wrinkles he was so careful to avoid until now, and screamed into the makeshift pillow in the cool of the spring night, alone in his car.

A dry, rattling thing tore itself from his chest and he waited to see if another would escape. When it didn’t, he took the key from the ignition and stepped outside and shut the door behind him with a careful click. Keys in his hand, phone in his pocket, wallet– _fuck where was his wallet, no, no, it was fine, probably in the glove compartment._ He didn't need his wallet right now, it didn't matter, they weren’t eating out and Eve was there anyway. He'd pay her back if there was something that needed it for whatever reason.

Carefully, oh so carefully, he ignored the shaking of his hands and the sharp twinge that lanced across his ribs with every breath he took and how it made him slouch, just a little. He'd have to suck it up and take deep breaths every so often so he didn't fuck up his lungs—

Crowley's thoughts wandered to safer places – like first aid and reminders on how to act totally, completely, normal – as he sauntered up to the door as smoothly as he could. Practicing his gait so neither Aziraphale nor Eve would think something was wrong.

Patting his jacket pocket, he slung his keys around his finger into the palm of his hand, wrapped his fingers around them, and knocked on the door.

Good, the pain medication was still there, so he could grab some water and start the night _fine_.

He was fine.

The door opened with a burst of cheerful babble and light that faded to almost nothing at all, because how could anything steal his attention from Aziraphale, right there in front of him. Alive.

Smiling.

That terrible, rattling thing tried to rip its way free of his chest once more, but Crowley fought it back and returned Aziraphale’s smile.

“Hey,” he managed.

“Hello there,” Aziraphale returned. He held out one hand and Crowley took it without hesitation. His skin ached for wanting to be touched and Aziraphale was just so _soft._

Crowley pasted a smile on his face as Aziraphale led him across the threshold.

It would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley, after realizing that Junior was not out about, discovered that he has died in his sleep. He goes to Eve to ask for a box, but does not tell her about Junior because he is worried about making her sad (and because he is not handling it well himself). He steadily slips into a very fuzzy/dissociative mindset over the course of the morning. During this time he also receives a phone call from Ligur, who tells him that he's expected to pick Ligur and his younger cousin Eric up for a job later in the day. return to chapter]
> 
> * * *
> 
> The authors, getting out our soapboxes: AHEM! TUMBLEWEEDS SHOULD BE ALIVE AND WE WILL NOT BE TAKING CRITICISM ON THAT
> 
> \- Deconstruct the Metatextual Meaning of The Cook  
> \- Linguists? More like Lameguists  
> \- ic gehæmed mid Béowulfe ond á geáfangen þæt bearmcláþ  
> (the last meaning, roughly, "I fucked Beowulf and all I got was this apron". With apologies to anyone who actually knows Old English, I’m sure I fucked up a case somewhere in there)


	17. Of Empty Glasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: (semi-)intentional mixing of alcohol and painkillers and self-medication with alcohol, continued references to death of a pet, deeply dysfunctional parent-child relationship (incl references to past abuse by abandonment/conditional love), dissociation (not seen from the POV of the person disassociating) 
> 
> If you would like to skip the abuse references, there is a link that will take you to the end of the chapter where there is a summary. The references are throughout the section between that link and the end, so you will not need to link back to any point in the chapter.

Aziraphale pulled Crowley inside his advisor's home, pleased beyond measure to see the man, especially after their fight. Well, he wasn't even sure it could really be called a fight so much as neither of them reacting very well to surprises. Crowley had been surprised to find Aziraphale suddenly in his home and Aziraphale had been surprised to be put on the defensive with Crowley for any reason.

That being said, he lo– cared for Crowley _very much_ and wasn't about to let him slip through his fingers if he could help it. Especially when Crowley had been the first to reach out, when it was so easy to see that Crowley had been worried that he'd broken something irreparably between them. Sure, they'd have to have an adult conversation about it, but that could wait for later. There was plenty of time they _weren't_ in company to have a meaningful talk about how they could do better than that next time.

Aziraphale slipped his fingers between Crowley's and smiled up at him, just a little shyly. Even such a small action caused a faint blush to color Crowley's cheeks, muddling his scattering of freckles. Crowley squeezed his fingers three times. It always seemed important that Crowley either looked at him searchingly, or pointedly looked away every time he did this. Aziraphale couldn't figure out _why_ for the life of him. So, he squeezed back and smiled reassuringly, then led Crowley into the living room; where the guests were sitting with glasses of wine and discussing various parts of their studies and lives.

Aziraphale stood just a little straighter, pulling his shoulders back proudly when a few conversations fell quieter after his fellows caught sight of Crowley with him. He chanced another look, over his shoulder, and his breath caught in his throat. Oh, he _really was_ handsome.

It was a realization Aziraphale could have anew every day, he thought as he led them silently, smiling happily, to where the wine was laid out and the appetizers were piled up. Crowley was dressed in his usual black; a sleek sportcoat with a lovely heather shirt beneath, buttoned almost entirely to the top, leaving his sharp features on display as a stark contrast to Aziraphale's gentle curves. They were a study in opposites, he knew, but Aziraphale thought the look of them together was all the more perfect for it. The feel of sharp angles resting light in his lap when they were alone together, or Crowley's thin fingers laced with his own thicker ones, the firmness of Crowley’s face beneath his own plush palms… it was all too perfect, really.

It was not until they reached the wine table that Aziraphale had the opportunity to indulge in looking Crowley over, to drink in the utterly devastating sight without shame. Everything about him was sleek, cool, perfectly fashiona— His eyes caught on a bright flash of silver and Aziraphale sighed, pretending to be affronted, at the snake-head belt buckle Crowley wore. It matched his black snake print chelsea boots, and it was _awful_. Aziraphale was overwhelmed by a hopeless, overwhelming fondness.

"You look– ah, I mean," Aziraphale paused, looking up and suddenly feeling shy with Crowley's attention so obviously riveted on him the moment he spoke. He couldn't see past the dark glasses, but he'd known Crowley long enough that by now reading his expression was simply a matter of habit, one that felt burnt onto his soul. He'd never unmake those neural pathways; and, as these last two weeks had taught him, he truly and honestly never wanted to do so. His mouth felt dry.

Crowley smirked at him, softer than normal and still staring in a way that sent a thrill of goosebumps down Aziraphale’s legs and across his shoulders. "You too, angel. I– you look real good too." His voice was a low rasp, the words meant for Aziraphale alone, barely audible through the cheerful babble of the people around the drinks table.

Aziraphale couldn't have stopped the bright grin that broke across his face any more than he could have stopped a new day from dawning. The joy when he was with Crowley was absolutely, wonderfully inevitable.

“Oh hello! Welcome!” Professor Haistwell’s cheerful voice broke the spell that had fallen over the two of them, so wrapped up in simply being together again after two miserable weeks apart. His advisor’s smile was broad and knowing. “You must be Aziraphale’s beau! He’s told me so much, all good of course.”

Aziraphale blinked once, and then again. He’d talked about Crowley, of course he had, but he didn’t think he’d _ever_ said ‘beau’. Luckily, Crowley seemed to take the enthusiasm in stride, setting his wine glass down long enough to hold out his hand for Haistwell to shake. Aziraphale felt his smile grow even larger as he realized that the way they were standing meant that setting the wine glass down was significantly more awkward than simply letting go of Aziraphale’s hand. And yet Crowley had done so without hesitation.

“Hello,” Crowley said; his voice still a bit hoarse, but nothing at all like the intimate murmur of before. “S’all lies, I’m sure.”

Professor Haistwell laughed and picked up the currently open bottle of wine, gesturing to each of them in turn for a refill. Aziraphale had only had a sip of his and demurred, but Crowley held his out with a murmured ‘thanks’.

Aziraphale stepped just a bit closer to Crowley, revelling in the blaze of heat against his side. He’d not realized how cold he felt the last few weeks until the chill was gone.

“Professor Haistwell, this is Crowley. Crowley, Professor Haistwell.”

“Well met, Crowley.” Haistwell’s eyes sparkled with humor and Aziraphale did nothing to hide his own eye roll at the archaic phrasing. “Have you come to ask my permission to court young Azira, here?”

Aziraphale groaned at that and turned his head to hide his blush. They’d been dating for two months! How could he still get so flustered when people noticed?

* * *

Crowley had been about to snark back with something that was sure to be witty when his eyes drifted from Dr. Haistwell's face and down to his lapel. Something clever about his tweed and tartan, and infecting Aziraphale with such terrible fashion sense; truly a more iconic joke would never have been spoken. Except then he saw a little pin on Haistwell’s lapel.

Crowley took up his glass of wine again and sipped at his wine to cover that he'd been struck completely dumb by such a small thing.

An unobtrusive enamel pin, round and ringed in the colors of the genderqueer flag—lavender, white, and green— inlaid with the words “they/them”. Something about his universe broke there, in the fuzzy static at the back of his mind. There was something inherently… not eerie, but unsettling, about seeing his own potential to exist in an alternate universe. One where the circumstances were just right, but not so different from here. Only that there was no invisible death sentence over his head. A universe where he'd live past 40-at-best and have a home of his own, a universe where he could be old and happy instead of dead and long gone, withered away or cut down too soon..

It was all at once freeing and frightening; like shrugging off years of chains and finding/discovering there was so much more life ahead of him, if only he could reach for it.

But first, he had to reach for it.

Crowley squeezed Aziraphale's fingers—once, twice, thrice—and mumbled a dissonant noise not dissimilar to the squeak of a rat. Somewhere between distress and unending, overflowing glee. "G'ndr flud?!"

He coughed as his cheeks began to burn, knowing his face must be turning as red as his hair. Crowley hunched his shoulders in embarrassment and titled his head down in a habitual deference. "I– I mean, you're gender fluid? Too?"

Dr. Haistwell just about lit up from the inside, smiling so wide it was clear where Aziraphale had gotten it from—Crowley knew it sure as fuck hadn't been from his biological family—and just said, "Why yes. Yes I am."

Crowley had been about to stutter and embarrass himself again, but Haistwell was turning on their heel and shouting for Eve.

"Eve! You didn't tell me your kid was queer!" They walked off into the kitchen, unknowingly carrying a whirlwind of Crowley's emotions along with them. If Aziraphale hadn't had a hold on Crowley's hand he wasn't sure he'd still be standing instead of stumbling for a seat somewhere.

"He's _gay_ Darby, what more do you want?!" Eve called out, catching up to Haistwell at the doorway to the dining room. She whirled them around with an arm hooked around their elbow and started dragging them back towards Crowley and Aziraphale with a grin nearly as bright as Dr. Haistwell's own.

"Boy! You're here!" Eve huffed at him, to which Crowley couldn't help but answer by pulling a face right back..

"How much have you had to drink already? You're never this happy to see me," Crowley snarked, setting down his empty glass, his lips quirked into a wry smile. Beside him, Aziraphale tutted and lightly tapped Crowley's shoulder with the back of his hand but didn't say anything about it.

Haistwell watched the little exchange in silence and Crowley found himself continually glancing at them and then quickly looking away as soon as he’d made eye contact. He was unable, or perhaps simply unwilling, to meet that knowing gaze. It felt too much like being laid bare in ways he wasn't sure he understood fully. After a few moments, Haistwell murmured something to Eve and steered them away, offering Eve another cocktail as they moved back into the kitchen.

"Well…" Aziraphale started, a little quiet and shy-sounding, prompting Crowley to look over at the man. He knew he was utterly failing at hiding that he hung off Aziraphale’s every word, but couldn’t bring himself to care. "That's ens for you, I suppose,” Aziraphale said fondly, then cleared his throat . “I apologize, we didn’t get all the way through the introductions. You’re not ens’ student so you don’t have to use ‘professor’. You’ll probably hear some of the others call ens’ Darby or Doctor DEATH. Which is much less intimidating than it sounds, I promise! It's a common joke because of ens' initials, you see."

"E– ens?" Crowley murmured, "I thought they were–" He cut himself off.

"Oh, right! Ens goes through all pronouns—he, she, they—but ens is a standard that's nearly always acceptable. They let us know what it is and if ens isn't alright on any particular day." Though Aziraphale’s voice was low and soothing, he seemed nervous.

He fidgeted with his feet, tapping his toes slowly from side to side, before taking a deep breath and nodding like he'd mustered his courage for something. Drawing Crowley's hand up with their fingers still interlaced, Aziraphale placed a terrifyingly tender kiss to the back of Crowley's hand.

"I–" Crowley fumbled over his tongue, grunting at the pain in his ribs, but managed to raise his free hand and cup Aziraphale's face. He was blushing again and hated how easily his face gave him away around Aziraphale. Trying to muster his own courage, Crowley gathered up all the things he wanted to say, all the things he wanted to make sure Aziraphale knew... and deflated at the last second. "I'll tell you later. Nothing bad, just not something for… here."

He squeezed Aziraphale's hand three times, for the third time in less than half an hour. And the realization that he loved Aziraphale, with the entirety of his shriveled heart, wasn't quite as surprising as he thought it'd be. He leaned down, covering a hiss of pain with an exhale. For a brief moment, he savored the closeness he'd been missing for two weeks. And then, when he was sure Aziraphale wouldn't flinch away from him, he pressed his lips to Aziraphale's. It was a sweet kiss, almost chaste, that he hoped conveyed a lot more than he seemed to be able to with his useless words.

* * *

Aziraphale smiled against Crowley's lips, grinning even wider at Crowley's squeak as he pulled the lanky man closer, wrapping his free arm around Crowley's waist and holding him tight.

"Oh, I thought you'd never do that again." Aziraphale whispered against his lips, breaking the kiss to speak, but scarcely moving away from it. "I'm _so_ pleased you came, my dear." To that Crowley made another one of his incomprehensible noises—and Aziraphale caught his thoughts and made a mental note to ask about Crowley's pronouns if it didn't come up after dinner on it's own.

"Anytime you like, angel." Crowley murmured back, breath hot against Aziraphale's lips. A polite cough sounded from behind Crowley, making Aziraphale flush., Flustered, he pulled Crowley to the side and out of the way of the wine bar. Dr. Adelola Collins, one of the oldest of Haistwell's students that still came to these dinners, smiled smugly at them.

"Caught yourself a winner, Fell?" She asked, pouring herself another glass of wine and tipping the bottle at the two of them askance. Looking up at Crowley sheepishly, Aziraphale nodded.

"Oh yes please, thank you, my dear," he replied. Collins rolled her eyes good naturedly at them, filling Crowley's emptied glass and topping up Aziraphale's.

"Don't thank me yet, you haven't introduced that one to the lions…" She quirked an eyebrow at them and purposefully thickened her Yoruba accent, as Aziraphale noticed she often did when meeting new people.

"Yes, well, this is… my beau. Crowley." Aziraphale pulled himself to stand just that much straighter and could feel the smile on his face turn stupid and besotted, but he honestly wasn't sure he cared. Well, he did care, depending on who was there, but at this dinner? Only people invited and vetted by Haistwell enself and Eve were invited more than once, and there weren't any new students this year. In fact, the only new face—Aziraphale started to realize with a growing dread, akin to that of finding yourself with a fresh piece of meat amidst starving… well, lions was an apt term for his academic-siblings for a reason—was Crowley.

Poor dear, he probably wouldn't even realize he was being cornered for questions… Though, to be perfectly fair, Aziraphale had had his own fun in the past when others brought significant others for the first time. Had to vet them and all, of course. And, well, this was the one that _Eve_ complained about in that utterly loving way of hers, so no wonder they'd be curious.

A quick glance around the room confirmed his suspicions. The rest of the students, present and alumni alike, were watching with sharp eyes how this all played out.

Crowley tightened his grip on Aziraphale's hand and smiled sharply—surprisingly like Eve at her cleverest—and stuck out a hand, playing up his own accent, rough and working class. "Pleased ta mee'cha."

Aziraphale laughed to himself and drank freely from his own glass, unsure what he'd worried about in the first place. Crowley was a good man and witty to boot, and he had confidence the rest would see it too just as quickly as he had...

* * *

It turned out that Aziraphale’s fellow students were, if possible, bigger nerds than Aziraphale. Crowley was slowly realizing that he’d somehow managed to snag a man who was, if the way the others talked was accurate, considered a bit of a wildcard in the preservation community. No less than three people had gleefully recounted stories of the lengths Aziraphale had gone to to acquire antique tomes from collectors who did not treat them well. One such tale had involved him dressing in all black and slipping in through a window in the dead of night.

Crowley wasn’t sure if he found that idea more alarming or attractive. He wouldn’t mind a catburglar that looked like Aziraphale slipping into _his_ room at night. Surprisingly, his method of chasing such urges away with another sip of drink in hand was not proving especially effective. They'd given him the run through of every "sibling" on their academic "family tree" in attendance too, all connected by Haistwell's advisory. Which, apparently, was something of a stand in for a parental figure.

The other students also kept calling him Beowulf, something that made Aziraphale blush hotly each time. Crowley hoped he could remember that in the morning when he was feeling more up to googling ‘Beowulf innuendo’. Junior would be asleep still so he didn’t need to worry about traumatizing the little–

Well, he supposed he didn’t need to worry about that no matter what time of day it was.

Desperate to forget the yawning void that opened before him at that thought, he tried to refocus on what was happening around him. The wine on an empty stomach and the pill he'd surreptitiously shoved into his cheek on the way to the first glass of said wine was starting to turn him fuzzy around the edges. Pleasantly so for the most part, even if it had made it difficult to keep track of how much he drank. Aziraphale had delved deep into conversation with Alexis by then, who’d been introduced to Crowley as the only other member of Aziraphale’s cohort. They’d apparently had every class together for the first two years of their degree and Crowley genuinely couldn’t tell if they adored or despised each other. They’d been going back and forth about the chemical makeup of glue for the last five minutes, so he felt sure that he’d not be missed.

He made his way across the milling crowd to where Eve was posted up by the fireplace. A small crowd of students surrounding her as she regaled them with a tale from her own grad student days. Crowley sidled close enough to not feel like he was being creepy but stayed outside the little circle, taking comfort from Eve’s familiar voice even as he watched Aziraphale throw his head back and laugh, loud and free across the room.

“Isn’t that right, Crowley?”

“Hmm?” He turned to Eve only to find that she and the three students were all giving him knowing smiles. He blushed and tried to ignore it.

“Sorry, missed that,” he said.

“I’m sure,” Eve grinned at him and he made a face at her, “I asked if you wanted to be the one to break the news to these poor single dears that you don’t have any siblings or clones.”

“Seems you already did?”

“Are you sure _sure_?” The one just to his left asked, her voice high pitched and hopeful, “Or maybe you and Azira are going to break up soon? Amicably of course!”

Crowley blinked slowly and glanced down at his wine glass, sure he’d misheard. “Wot?”

“It’s just, my brother’s gay and bloody hell its hard to set him up on dates! But, Azira has great taste, so I was thinking if you two were thinking about, you know, ending it? Anytime soonish? Then, I’d give you my brother’s number.”

Crowley really had no idea how he was meant to respond to that.

Eventually, he managed to gather his wits enough to say, “Ah, no. Don’t plan to break up with him.” A thought occurred to him, percolating up through the fuzz that surrounded his thoughts, “Ever. I… don’t plan to _ever_ break up with him.”

Holy hell.

He shoved that realization back into the hole it had scurried from, unable to have another crisis over the concept of a ‘future’ tonight.

The girl sighed. “Fine, I guess Henry’s doomed to be single forever. I keep telling him other people’s rowing teams aren’t as handsy as his, but he’s a little dim, ya know?”

“Er?”

Eve laughed and wrapped her arm around his shoulders pulling him close. The sharp jolt of pain from his ribs helped to clear his mind a bit. “Crowley knows all about that, you know he thought Aziraphale was asking for all those extra tutorial sessions because he just liked astronomy that much?”

The group laughed, but it didn’t feel cruel. It felt like how he’d always wanted things to feel with Beez and Dagon, like they could poke fun but they were using their fingers rather than knives.

“Yeah, well, he really wasn’t very good at astronomy. Y’can’t blame me for thinking he wanted extra help.”

Eve squeezed his shoulders once, a clear message that he was doing well. He breathed a sigh of relief, tamping down the ever-present fear that he’d embarrass Aziraphale in some way.

“So, what year are you all?” As expected, this set off a rapidfire conversation about theses and coursework and he was able to sit back and let it all wash over him as he stole glances to Aziraphale.

* * *

Eventually Crowley looked up from his conversation to see that Darby had appeared in the doorway. Ens’ apron was gone, revealing (if it was possible) _more_ tweed. Despite the ever increasing feeling of being just to the left of his body, Crowley smiled.

“I assume you have the name of ens tailor,” he murmured to Aziraphale, who’d just returned to his side from his own impassioned debate about some translation or something, Crowley wasn’t sure of much past that it had involved a lot of vaguely german sounding names and Aziraphale outright laughing as he’d said, “The eighty-three edition? Good _God_ man, are you mad?”

Crowley was stupid in love with him.

Aziraphale snorted, then tried to cover it by taking an overly large gulp of his wine and then choking. As he waved his hand to the concerned guests to let them know he wasn’t dying he hissed, “I don't own any tweed and you know it, Crowley!”

The fake smile Crowley had worn since arriving at the house felt just a bit more real as the crushing weight of _everything_ that had happened that day lifted for just a moment in time with the corners of Aziraphale’s mouth. The stomach unclenched a tad; perhaps he could eat a little bread, ensure that he remembered something at all about this evening.

“It’s about that time!” Darby announced, “Ms. Sargon and I have, well, we’ve certainly done something that some people might say approximates cooking.” A smattering of laughter which Crowley joined in on when he saw Eve’s sour look. “So! Pick a seat— No, Collins, you cannot have that one, we’ve had that chat. I know your game, young lady.” More laughter as the woman perhaps two decades Crowley’s senior sheepishly stepped away from the seat at the head of the table, with a fox like grin and a twinkle in her eyes belying her mirth at what was obviously an old joke. “There are two soups, those of you who want a broth of some sort, Eve’s your woman. Cream of asparagus fans, I am, as always, at your service.”

Chaos briefly took over the space as the students and their partners shuffled themselves into something resembling order. Crowley allowed Aziraphale to pull him along until they were settled at the far end of the table, with Crowley on the very edge, directly to the left of the host’s seat. As soon as they were seated Darby appeared holding a wooden tray with small steaming bowls.

“Cream of Asparagus?” ens asked. Crowley nodded mutely, still a bit overwhelmed by ens’ entire existence (and possibly a bit too drunk to manage words just then). It smelled amazing and the hope that he might be able to eat something after all grew a bit. “Good lad.” There was a traitorous prickle of tears that Crowley desperately hoped was due to everything that had happened that day, to say nothing of the pills and the wine and the lingering pain in his chest, because otherwise it meant he was emotional about Darby approving of his soup choice and that was _ridiculous._

The soup was distributed quickly, then, after Eve had taken her seat across from Crowley on Darby’s right, ens stood and raised a glass.

“As always,” ens began, “I am humbled that you all would chose me to guide your first steps into–”

From the entryway there was the sound of a door opening and then a pleasant voice calling out, “Hello! Darby, dear, what _have_ I told you about keeping the door locked?”

Crowley’s blood turned to ice in his veins. He– He _knew_ that voice.

But, she couldn’t– she wouldn’t– _Why was she here?_

His hand was shaking, rattling the spoon he’d picked up before Darby began speaking against the china of his bowl. He dropped it and moved his hand to his lap.

“Geneviève! You made it,” Darby’s voice was warm, ens’ smile broad. Crowley’s eyes darted around the room. Everyone looked happy, comfortable.

They didn’t know.

No one but Crowley and–

Heels on hardwood, each step a nail driven between his vertebrae, forcing him to sit straighter than he had in the last decade. Unbidden, his hand sought Aziraphale’s, desperate for something at all to ground him. He wasn’t that kid, wasn’t ashamed of who he was. The tattoo on his cheek burned anyway.

Crowley’s mother entered the dining room and his tenuous grip on the present moment slipped away.

* * *

Aziraphale stood at the same time a few others did when his grand-advisor entered the room, not minding how Crowley's hand slipped from his underneath the table. Something about Dr. Darrington made people stand up and take notice, or invited all the old cotillion and manners training a few of them had gotten as children to the surface. A chorus of welcomes sounded and the good doctor took her seat at the foot of the table. She’d been Haistwell's own advisor and permanent guest of honor at these dinners. At this point she was very much something of a grandmother figure for quite a few of the students, considering ens' role as stand in parent for quite a few more of them; even if she was a little unapproachable casually, she always seemed to be able to make time if someone truly needed it.

He really was lucky, Aziraphale thought as he watched Dr. Darrington draw the always shy Olivia into conversation about her work with atmospherically stable varnishes, that his academic family tree was populated by such good people. So many students were left in a lurch by their advisors, but that had never been anything Aziraphale worried about.

The dinner continued on and Dr. Darrington was served Haistwell's signature soup as she spoke, measured and calmly with everyone on her end of the table, effortlessly drawing them into an easy conversation that was refined but not cloistering. Aziraphale had always liked her, even when his actual advisor had been too much for him with ens cheer and outgoingness, Dr, Darrington had been a serene bastion that was alike enough to his home life without any of the familial _teasing_ that put him on edge around his actual family. She was familiar in only the best of ways.

Through the first course of soup, Aziraphale felt a little off kilter. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something felt odd about the conversations around the table. Aziraphale looked over and blinked in surprise at Crowley's emptied glass and grabbed a nearby wine bottle to refill his glass and top his own off after confirming it was the same wine as Collins had poured for them earlier. There was something off there too, something that made Aziraphale think of repairing the Bentley with bottles of wine between them… He shook his head fondly, sure it was only the memory of the massage that was bothering him.

[SKIP CONTENT]

* * *

Professor Haistwell liked to make a production out of the dinner, Aziraphale had realized over the last few years. It wasn’t just soup and the main dish and some mingling. It was _hors d'oeuvres_ and soup and a fish course and the main dish and dessert and, afterward, wine and cheese. Most of the attendees had never had something so elaborate and in deference to them they always took a short break between the fish and the main course. Professor Haistwell and Eve slipped away to the kitchen to arrange the next courses while the students stood and refilled their glasses, shifting around to talk to those they weren’t seated near. A small expedition was setting off for the library where they posited they would be able to capture Professor Haistwell’s cat, Monmeowth for study (in practice, this meant a group of highly educated graduate students crouched on the floor, trying to tempt the grumpy beast into emerging and then becoming reduced to babyspeak when he deigned to grace them with his presence).

Aziraphale was just about to ask if Crowley wanted to go mingle with the other students when Dr. Darrington sat down in Eve’s seat.

At his side, Crowley shifted oddly, probably checking his phone. He’d been awfully on edge when he arrived, perhaps he was feeling a bit overwhelmed still. Aziaphale _had_ seen him talking to Julie earlier; he was sure she’d regaled him with the tale of her terrifically oblivious brother and his baffling romance with one of his fellow crew teammates. Julie was nice, but tended to speak without thinking, and she’d been so eager to meet Crowley. Aziraphale made a mental note to keep an eye out for Crowley wanting to leave. He didn’t want to force the other man to stay any longer than he was comfortable.

Besides, this was the first time they were seeing each other in two weeks, Aziraphale had a few thoughts about how he’d like to end the evening and none of them were especially appropriate for his advisor’s formal dining room.

But that was for later. Right now, Dr. Darrington was leaning forward and capturing his gaze with her own.

“Azira,” she said, voice smooth as honey, “I hope you’re doing well. I heard about all the trouble you were having with your funding and that awful man in the astronomy department.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Well, Crowley here is the reason that’s worked itself out. I would not be passing astronomy without him.” Crowley suddenly felt much closer to Aziraphale, as if he’d leaned in, though Aziraphale hadn’t felt him move.

Dr. Darrington’s eyes flicked to Crowley and back to Aziraphale. “Hm, I’d not have th–”

“Dr. Darrington!” Julia and Clarence clattered over, their eyes overbright and their cheeks flushed. Aziraphale hid his smile behind his hand. They were both going to be mortified on Monday.

“Where’s your husband?” Clarence asked. “I’ve not seen him around campus. Was he busy?” Aziraphale winced even as Crowley flinched. Clarence meant well, but lord they could be tactless.

Dr. Darrington’s eyes flicked to Crowley again and now the corresponding way that he tightened against Aziraphale caused a trickle of worry to wrap around his heart. He turned his head to check in, worried that perhaps the wine had caught up with him, he’d not had more than one or two bites of their course so far.

“He died,” Dr. Darrington said, her voice thin with grief, “Eleven months ago.” At his side Crowley was a jagged shard of glass, his elbow and hip and the jut of his shoulder almost painful with how hard he was pressed into Aziraphale.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said.

She sniffed. “Yes, well. Heart attack. These things can’t be helped.”

In later years, Aziraphale would curse himself for his blindness, for his confusion and slow reaction. He would look back and berate his younger self for not acting the moment Crowley snorted. But, he didn’t. He was tipsy and distracted by the memory of a man he’d not known very well, but whose company he enjoyed.

Crowley snorted. Aziraphale did nothing more than turn to blink at him in confusion, and then Dr. Darrington lifted one perfect eyebrow.

“Yes?” she said, voice flat.

“Were you going to tell me? Ever? If I hadn’t, by random fucking chance, been here tonight, would you have ever tried to find me to let me know?”

Aziraphale stared. Crowley was being far too loud, his ability to regulate his volume stolen away by what Aziraphale was just now realizing was a genuinely staggering amount of alcohol. Then, Crowley’s words filtered through.

“Crowley, my dear, what are you-?” Eve and Professor Haistwell reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen, concern clear on both their faces.

“I assumed,” Dr. Darrington said before anyone else could speak, “that if you wanted our association know you would have said something.”

“Association? Asso- No- You told me-” Crowley started a half dozen sentences, cutting each off in obviously increasing desperation to find his words. There was a sudden movement by the kitchen and Aziraphale dragged his eyes away from Crowley to see Eve with her hands over her mouth, eyes wide. She started towards them.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Dr. Darrington said. She picked up her wineglass and took a generous sip, “You’re the one who left. You never let us know you were alright, could have been dead in a ditch for all we knew.”

Crowley reeled backward, but it was nothing on the way he crumpled in on himself at her next words.

“I’ve not had a son for ten years.”

In later years, Aziraphale would berate himself for freezing, for not acting to help the man he loved so dearly. Because, as it stood, it was all he could do to stay upright as Crowley collapsed inward, tucking his arms around his gut and his chin to his chest.

“Right,” he said. A deep, shaking breath. Even Eve was frozen in place, a few feet behind Dr. Darrington. “Right.”

Aziraphale watched as he forced his head up a bit so he could look towards Professor Haistwell. “Thank you, Professor.” Then, he yanked his keys from his jacket pocket and tossed them in Eve’s direction.

Without another word, Crowley turned on his heel and left the party.

Aziraphale watched him go, shocked and afraid. He looked to Professor Haistwell and Eve; the former was a slowly gathering thunderhead, clearly directed at Dr. Darrington, while the latter met his gaze and nodded.

Aziraphale returned the gesture, crossed to the drinks table to take up two bottles of water, and followed Crowley into the night.

Behind Aziraphale the room burst into sound. He'd never heard Eve yell, not really, not out of anger instead of joy. And he'd never heard Haistwell yell _ever_. A chill crept over his spine and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he thought about what exactly they’d all just learned.

Suddenly, Dr. Darrington didn’t seem so charming and refined. Suddenly, she reminded him of his own mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Crowley's parents kicked him out when he was 15 (as discussed previously in the fic) due to his association with the gang (who were at the time nothing more than a group of rabble-rousing teens) and the appearance of a face tattoo. His mother, unknown to anyone due to their last names not matching, was Haistwell's thesis advisor and she comes to ens dinner party. In the course of the conversation, she reveals that her husband (Crowley's father) has died and that she still feels ambivalent, bordering on indifferently cruel, about Crowley. Crowley panics and leaves the house. Aziraphale follows him.
> 
> A few more chapters of Dark Times left D: We love you all so much and please remember that there will not only be a happy ending, but on-screen healing coming soon. We're not going to leave anyone hanging.


	18. Of Glowing Skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Brief self harm in the form of punching a hard object, references to parental rejection/abandonment, generally, Crowley’s reaction to uh, EVERYTHING. While the sections from his POV might be a bit rough, we didn't think it crossed the line into needing full warnings/linked skips. If that is not the case, please let us know and we'll be happy to edit them in.
> 
> You can find a playlist for this chapter [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6qvfd6528Z7k5xfeTIqBE7?si=lJBMPjqAT-usRbe9gco5eA)!!!

“Azira,” _She_ said, voice smooth and sharp as poison, “I hope you’re doing well. I heard about all the trouble you were having with your funding and that awful man in the astronomy department.” Crowley's hands trembled and he felt _her_ eyes on him, a thousand tiny knife points gutting him slowly and flaying him open. And then they fell away, just as disinterested as before, as willing to play the silent bastion of whatever-the-fuck she wanted to pretend it was this time.

And he hated her.

But he loved her too, and that was the hard part. If it'd just been hate or even blessed indifference like she'd managed to cultivate for herself, then it'd all be fine. He'd make it through dinner just fine, and he could pretend at that. For another couple of hours, maybe duck out early, say his apologies to Aziraphale or– or maybe he could even try his hand at seducing Aziraphale away. Drag him around some corner where none of the other guests could see and kiss him senseless and bring him back to the car with a hand on his thigh. He could whisk him away, could give Aziraphale what he wanted just– just as long as he could take him away–

Crowley shook his head and clenched his hands in his lap, digging fingers into his thighs and purposefully breathing low and deep because it hurt. How lucky he was that the right thing was the painful one. It was better for him, in the long run, to make himself breathe deep; if he kept breathing shallowly, it'd probably get him pneumonia. Ribs had a funny way of fucking you over when they were hurt, even if it felt like you were doing alright, afterwards…

"Where's your husband?" Someone else asked. Aziraphale must have responded to _her_ at some point, must have mentioned who he was, but Crowley had just been trying to steady his breathing and make sure that if he must shake—and yes, he must, he had no control over it—then it would only be in his hands and perhaps his knees, hidden underneath the table. But then his father was mentioned. “I’ve not seen him around campus. Was he busy?”

Crowley shifted against Aziraphale and pressed his elbow against his own ribs and the heel of his hand into his thigh, wishing he'd gotten bruised there too, that he could layer something onto it with the pressure of his palm to distract him from this clusterfuck of a day.

“He died,” _She_ said, voice reedy, unlike her usual stern tambor. The first true emotion he’d heard from her that night. “Eleven months ago.” Crowley leaned hard into Aziraphale, both his elbows squeezing tight against his ribs, his entire side from hip to shoulder shoved up against Aziraphale. He was drunk, Crowley knew he was drunk, but he also wasn't really in his body no matter how much he fought and tried to claw his way back in.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Aziraphale said and he did sound sorry. Filled to the brim with sorrow for a man he’d apparently known and how strange that the man Aziraphale had known was entirely different from the one who had– who had raised Crowley.

The man who was dead.

She sniffed. A sharp pain in Crowley's chest, like glass shards in his heart. “Yes, well. Heart attack. These things can’t be helped.”

So it couldn't really be Crowley's fault that he'd misstepped. He snorted, loudly. Couldn’t be bloody helped, fuck _her_.

“Yes?” she said, voice flat, digging.

The same lack of control, the same loose feeling. Not a nice one, he was unmoored, unbound, a dog without a lead in the middle of a six-lane road.

“Were you going to tell me? Ever? If I hadn’t, by random fucking chance, been here tonight, would you have ever tried to find me to let me know?” Crowley was louder than he meant to be, or maybe just everyone else was too quiet. The room was still and he _knew_ he should just back off, laugh it off, leave off, whatever the fuck off and go. He should run away with his bloody tail tucked between his legs like always and save the fucking heartache. But since when had Crowley ever had a single good idea?

Aziraphale said something at his side, but Crowley couldn't tear his eyes away from _her_. He stared at her, hoping his eyes felt like daggers just like hers always did.

“I assumed,” she said smoothly, “that if you wanted our association known you would have said something.”

“Association? Asso– No– You told me–" Crowley choked and fumbled over his tongue and leaned away from Aziraphale just enough to wheeze with the sudden relief from the pressure on his ribs, trapping the glass in his chest, grinding it together with every breath.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset.” She picked up her wineglass and drank from it. “You’re the one who left. You never let us know you were alright, could have been dead in a ditch for all we knew.”

Crowley nearly fell out of the chair, jerking back in shock, only to be felled in truth by a blow he'd seen coming a decade away, but could never really reconcile to himself.

"I've not had a son for years."

The words echoed, or well, they probably didn't, not in the room. But they echoed in Crowley, like the death knell from a cathedral bell. He could feel himself, see himself, crumple down like a wet newspaper on the street, chin down at his chest and arms around his waist. Just like he'd had to learn—keep your stomach protected, your arms are stronger than your ribs, if you break a shoulder you'll get on better than a punctured lung, protect the soft spots, fuck up your organs and you'll piss blood for weeks and probably should'a died.

As much as Crowley knew this wasn't a fight, with his shoulders tucked up against his ears and covering his neck, it felt like one. Right in the middle of it, back on the ground, and gettin' his shit kicked in.

"Right." Crowley shuddered a breath and bit back a whine of pain when he inhaled too far. He stood slowly, careful not to tip over or show any further weakness. The room swayed, so he placed his hands delicately on the table, to make sure he didn't visibly sway as well. "Right," he repeated.

He looked up, gaze skittering over Aziraphale and then up to Aziraphale's professor, the queer one. Haistwell, the one Eve liked. "Thank you, Professor." And then he was out of words, couldn't trip over his tongue anymore, couldn't take the stares that felt like razorblades dripping down his back and over the sides of his face. So he fumbled for his keys and tore them from his jacket pocket with gestures so big he could only imagine that he looked sloppy and obviously drunk, but it didn't matter anymore.

He tossed the keys to Eve, the only other person he'd _really_ trust to drive the Bentley, and stepped out of the room as gracefully as he could manage—which probably wasn’t very. He traced his fingers on the walls as he stepped light as a cat to the front door. Someone was yelling behind him, and he couldn't bring himself to listen.

He hoped Aziraphale wasn't in trouble for bringing him.

He hoped this didn't count as Eve's doorstep too.

* * *

Crowley made it to the end of the street, took half a turn, caught all the lights from the windows of the houses with the corner of his eye, and suddenly everything hit him all at once. Between two of the houses there was a dark little space, unlit except for where the ambient lights from the houses around it glowed through windows and porches. A park, little more than a single swing, a short slide attached to a climbing frame, and one of those old, rusty playground roundabouts[1].

He shuffled off the concrete and onto the grass, his steps feeling heavier by the second, until he flopped down with a moan of pain between the bars of the roundabout. He didn't see many of these anymore—too many kids hurt themselves on them or something, so lots of public places took 'em out. But he'd liked them as a kid, as a teenager too. Apparently he still did as an adult, even.

There was something inherently… soothing about the slow crawl of the circle, pushing your weight round and round until you were just a little motion-sick and had a hard time walking on solid ground. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, it was easy enough to pretend this was what coming home after a long sea voyage felt like. Not that he knew what being on a boat was like, let alone away on some long journey, but Crowley had always had a half-decent imagination.

Today was… it'd been. Painful. He didn't know how else to describe it, even just to himself in the deepest corners of him. It hurt physically, even through the haze of too much alcohol mixed with pain medication that made him want to fall asleep even as it hurt to breathe. Crowley pulled himself up onto the roundabout entirely, except for one foot, and leaned his spine along the cool metal, paint flaking off it and rust likely rubbing into the fabric of his jacket.

Crowley pushed, heel on the ground, slow and steady. The roundabout only moved a couple feet before settling again.

So he pushed again, and again, and again, and thought himself a shitty, drunken philosopher. Because wasn't this what life was? There was just pushing over and over and forcing it to bloody _move_ as best you could, and the weaker you were, the more hurt you were, the less _oomph_ you had to offer, the more you had to work at it to go in circles until you stopped noticing it was even circles at all.

And then you just got tired.

It was hard to tell which bits of pain were from his ribs and which were from the rest of him. Was it the sharp pangs from talons of loss and grief wrapped around his heart and lungs? Or was it just the physical bones and muscles that hurt because he’d once again pushed them past their breaking point? Because he’d prodded at them too long, taken one too many hits to the same battered area. Crowley sighed and closed his eyes, pushing himself again on the roundabout.

Junior was gone. That hurt. Check.

Knowing he was feeling the hurt from that one more than Junior ever could have helped (he was dead and anyway, snakes couldn't love like that, not quite; Crowley was a favorite sunning rock and moving perch at best). But then again, it didn’t help at all. Not really. It still hurt, and Crowley knew he was a clingy bastard right to the core of him. Just wanted to hold on and never let go until whatever good thing he had suffocated beneath his hands. And he was a little scared that maybe that was what would happen to everything—he'd kill it somehow by wanting it too much, putting too much of himself to it, because wearing a heart on your sleeve wasn't a good look. Right there next to washed up, really…

That Eric kid, Ligur's cousin, had a fucking terrible parade right into Hell. Crowley could just about guarantee the kid had seen just enough to hook him in, probably promised money or some kind of cool status or something equally as dumb to keep him hush. Dragged in like all the rest of 'em as dumb kids who never got any smarter 'cause they were held down under those currents forever and it was hard to think when you were never permitted to come up for air. Crowley pretended he didn't feel like drowning.

Did that hurt? Yeah. Check.

Push.

Fuckin'– fucking Haistwell. Crowley snarled to himself, how dare his eyes tear up about this, how fucking _dare_ the rest of his body break down on him and betray him. But since bloody when was that new? His eyes burnt every time he blinked, so instead he just screwed them shut and tried not to swipe at the edges of them too hard to keep them wiped dry.

Aziraphale's stupid, terrible, fucking cool as shit professor was _happy_. They had a house and a career and were queer on top of it and Eve was their best friend and fuck, man. Just. _Fuck_. It wasn't fair, except it was, 'cause they obviously weren't a screw-up.

Haistwell even had _her_ on their side. _She_ liked them, put her hand on their shoulder, _approved_ of them like she'd _never_ done for Crowley. He wanted to be angry about it—anger was safe and easy and it meant he wouldn't get hurt anymore—but angry was so _much_. It took too much, more than he had in him to give. It just left him hurt and scarred and empty and raw and flayed open. Nerves all alight with the slightest touch of anything that wasn't searing numbness.

Push.

There was something about knowing that if you weren't _you_ , then you'd have been _accepted_. Something terrible like a hot, tarry oil dripping from somewhere in him and roiling in his stomach. Or, perhaps that was the wine. Knowing he might have been loved by the people he was meant to be loved by except for the fact that it was _him_ , something integral to him he couldn't seem to separate from the rest of him, not in six-thousand years… It just hurt. A physical thing, a spiritual thing, an emotional thing, whatever. It just. Hurt.

Crowley had comforted himself with the thought that maybe they'd not have liked that he was queer and he was better off like this, free from their influences before he got into that self-flagellation like so many gay, genderqueer folk did. But Haistwell, their very existence, negated that comfort, showed him the plain, hard truth. And Crowley honestly hadn't ever liked the truth less.

He should text Aziraphale. The thought blossomed in the front of his mind fully realized and whole with a heavy dose of sudden sea-sick worry. Shit, shit, fuck, bollocks! He just walked fucking out of the damned _party_ Aziraphale had invited him to! He hadn't even said _sorry_ in person, fuck!

"Bloody unforgivable fuck up," Crowley muttered, slurring the words to himself and throwing a hand down to punch the metal of the roundabout, hissing at the pain. He did it again, 'cause at least _this_ he could control, this was pain he _chose_ and could stop whenever he wanted, and it cleared out some of the fog in his head, just a little. Enough to keep up a steady flow of curses under his breath and only almost drop his phone as he fished it out.

Turning it on and unlocking it with a single, fluid motion, Crowley froze. Up on the screen was his music player. And right there under his thumb was a playlist called "Angel." He'd been putting it together for a couple days now. Two weeks, if he was gonna be honest for once in his miserable life, ever since Aziraphale left. He'd have found a way to put it on a CD or a cassette and buy a bloody boombox to play it on if he had to, if this went on much longer. If Aziraphale hadn't wanted to see him so soon.

With a soft noise he didn’t quite understand, for all that it came from his own throat (and that he wasn’t ready to think about just then) he hit shuffle on the playlist. It was the closest thing he could have made to a mixtape, which seemed like the thing to do at the time. Fuck he was in over his head, drowning in it. But it was Aziraphale, so it would be fine. Hopefully. If he hadn’t just fucked it up beyond repair.

The soft strains of the first song came through the speakers and Crowley fought the dual impulses to follow the alcohol and all the rest still in his system and go to sleep or to throw his phone at the ground so it might shatter and he’d not have to endure feeling so flayed open by the him in the past who’d made these choices.

_And as our lives unfold Until we're grey and old…_

It was one of the first songs he'd put on the playlist, one of the ones he'd thought about for the longest. The one that broke the dam for all the rest of the songs on there with too much hidden meaning. He'd never explain it; that's what mixtapes were for right? You just put it all on there and hope they _got it_ , that whoever you gave it to got you and what you were thinking.

Fuck, he should have taken a bottle to go. Drinking alone in the dark on a half-abandoned child's toy would be better than this. And, with any luck, he'd pass out until the morning. Maybe not the healthiest, but it'd be at least 8 hours of blissful void where he wouldn't _hurt_. Wouldn't worry about being hurt, wouldn't worry about all the what-ifs and the coulda-beens.

Forgetting entirely about the text, Crowley let his phone fall to the metal roundabout with a tinny thud and let it play. Music, at least, would help, probably. If he didn't have more pills or wine or anything harder, music would do.

God, fuck, anyone. Crowley looked up at the dim stars overtaken by the lights around him and wished desperately to be on a frozen mountaintop miles away from anyone else; he hadn't ever really prayed, not on purpose or anything, but he'd do just about anything to stop these useless fucking circles. He'd already sold his life to the devil and his gang, bought a car with the profits even.

Just, fuck… just stop the goddamn pointless circles.

* * *

The street felt both overly wide and far too narrow as Aziraphale stood at the end of Professor Haistwell’s walk and tried to figure out what direction Crowley would have gone. It was full dark now, the sky the sort of hazy dark orange at the edges where the lights of London seeped upward, and quiet. So quiet. Everyone was safe in their homes, having dinner or watching a show or doing something else to enjoy their time with their loved ones who were all _there._ Aziraphale felt the breath begin to speed up in his chest, he didn’t know– couldn’t know where Crowley had gone.

A look to the left, the street curved, a gentle slope out of sight and towards the main road. He could distantly hear the noises from the cars that never stopped passing by that way. To the right was more of the neighborhood, more houses and trees and the little squares of light that hit the street from warm living rooms.

Aziraphale went right.

He wanted to go slow, wanted to be careful in his search, but his fear sped his feet and he was soon jogging, frantically turning his head to and fro as he looked. Nothing, no one, all was still and empty except–

There! A dark shape.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cried, jumping forward to grab at the man’s shoulder except it was far too thick and suddenly there was a stranger before him, looking at him like he was mad.

“I– I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” Aziraphale muttered, turning away.

“Whatever, mate,” the man said as he stepped from the pavement and crossed the street. “Bloody drunk.”

The darkness stretched out around him, creeping out from the bushes and trees. He’d gone far enough that the noise from the cars was gone and, as the stranger’s feet faded into nothing, the rustle was the only thing he could hear now.

The trees and the bushes and his own breathing and… music?

Aziraphale blinked, startled from his spiraling panic.

Perhaps it was coming from one of the houses? It was quiet; he couldn’t really make out any words. But, no, the houses around him were all dark. Just ahead there was a wall made entirely of shrubbery, carefully manicured. He crept forward and peered through the gate in the middle to see a small park nestled in the space between two houses. The whole area was dark, heavily shaded by trees and the houses but he was sure that the music was coming from further in.

“Crowley?” he called, reluctant to raise his voice past a loud whisper. There was no response.

He pushed at the gate and slipped into the park. After a few steps, his eyes adjusted and he could make out a small climbing frame and swing set and, at the very back of the park, a metal roundabout. Crowley was sitting at the edge of it, foot on the ground as he slowly moved himself in a circle.

“Crowley.” He crossed the space between them without hesitation. He’d been so afraid, so shocked by the turn of events and Crowley’s behavior that he felt like he’d not yet been able to properly think about anything.

The slow circle brought Crowley back around to him, and Aziraphale reached out, grasping the vertical bars on either side of him, halting his momentum. They were beneath a gap in the foliage, and the light of the crescent moon lit Crowley’s face, casting him in sharp relief as he tilted his head up to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale wanted to apologize to him, wanted to promise that he’d not known, he’d never asked about her family. He wanted to say that he didn’t think any differently of Crowley because nothing at all had changed and to ask if he was feeling okay because he’d not eaten much at all and had drunk so very much.

There were so, so many things that Aziraphale wanted to say but when he opened his mouth what came out was;

“May I kiss you?”

Crowley’s mouth opened slightly, to take a breath or to speak; Aziraphale wasn’t sure, because he closed it again seemingly without doing either. Aziraphale took a small step closer, into the space between Crowley’s spread legs, but not so close that they touched. He imagined he could feel the heat radiating from the other man, though he couldn’t be sure if that was reality or his own (slightly drunken) imagination.

“Always,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale knew that he meant it.

Aziraphale released the bars and took Crowley’s face between his hands. The roundabout was low, and he had to bend to reach, but he was reluctant to step away to make it easier. Crowley stretched, clasping one hand around Azirphale’s right wrist and wrapping the other around the curve of his side. Their lips met lightly at first, a gentle brush that was not so much hesitant as welcoming. _Hello there,_ said without words, chaste and soft and warm and the prelude to entire conversations.

Crowley did not pull away, instead pressing closer still and taking Aziraphale’s lower lip between his teeth, biting down just enough to be felt but not hurt, and Aziraphale could not have hoped to stay the quiet moan that escaped him.

When they finally pulled back, each panting for air, Crowley did not release Aziraphale. Instead, he wrapped both arms around his waist and pulled him in, resting his forehead on the swell of Aziraphale’s lower stomach. Aziraphale’s heart stilled in his chest, suddenly wrapped up in how precious this moment was, how very much he treasured the quiet contentment. He rested his hands on Crowley’s head, lightly scratching his fingernails through the short hair at the nape of his neck. Crowley hummed and squeezed him tighter as the music fell silent.

The world seemed to stop turning in the seconds between songs. Even the light breeze stilled in the air so the leaves did not move. Aziraphale scarcely dared to breathe, desperate for this moment to last as long as possible.

Then, the next song began (something with more drums than Aziraphale would normally choose) and the spell was broken. Crowley sat up and let him go and, feeling vaguely bereft, Aziraphale took a half step back so he could more readily see Crowley’s face.

The serenity of the last few minutes faded away as he looked, allowing his anxiety to return. Crowley was… haggard. The lines of his face that had appeared so fey and beautiful not five minutes before now looked gaunt and hunted.

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, unsure what he meant to follow it up with. Luckily, he needed not know because Crowley laughed, a little broken thing that hurt to hear.

“I met your mom.” Crowley laughed again and now it was half-hysterical, sending the terrible, twisting feeling in Aziraphale’s chest tighter. “S’only fair you meet mine!”

“Crowley, dearest.” He stepped forward once more, holding out one hand. “I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink; let’s get you inside. I’ll make some coffee and you can eat.” He thought of the few meager bites he’d seen Crowley eat. It was nowhere near enough to soak up the alcohol he’d consumed.

Crowley glared at his hand, batting it away. “Don’t wanna,” he snapped. “Like this. No, wait, don’t like this. Can’t. Shouldn’t. Hmm.” He blinked and looked up at Aziraphale, who swallowed heavily. Crowley’s eyes were filled with tears. Aziraphale had never seen him cry before.

He reached out again, moving more slowly this time, allowing Crowley’s bleary gaze to track his movement. He did not protest or attempt to move away and, in fact, when Aziraphale touched his cheek, he leaned into it.

* * *

Aziraphale’s hand was warm. So fuckin’ warm. It was a firebrand against his frozen cheek, and Crowley wasn’t sure how he’d ever survived without it.

“Sorry,” Crowley said. “Didn’t mean’ta embro– embarss– ruin things.” He gestured expansively out towards the row of houses. “Just, I really didn’ expect t’see her.” He barked out a bitter laugh, running one clumsy hand through his hair. “Y’wouldn’t believe th’day I’ve had.”

Aziraphale patted the side of his face once before settling down at his side.

“May I hug you?” he asked. Crowley blinked and swallowed and nodded, wondering just how bad he had to look for Aziraphale to be asking before he did anything.

“Like y’hugs,” he whispered.

“Good.” Aziraphale twisted to the side, pressed close by the narrow space between the bars, and wrapped his arms around Crowley. The silence settled across them, broken only by the quiet buzz of spring insects.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said after he felt the tension begin to drain from Crowley’s body. “I didn’t know that she was your– that you knew her. Please believe that I’d never put you in that scena–”

“I know,” Crowley said, pleased to discover he sounded slightly more sober. Perhaps the cool night air or the distance had helped.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Crowley focusing on the feeling of cool air rushing in through his nose and the warm weight of Aziraphale wrapped around him. The music was still playing on his phone, a nearly inaudible glimpse into all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t manage to wrangle. Eventually, after Aziraphale sat back, leaving one arm wrapped around his shoulders, he gathered the energy to speak again.

“Junior died.” The words _hurt._ More than he thought they would after everything that had happened since that morning. He’d thought he was at his limit, that nothing could hurt any more than he already was, but it turned out he was wrong because Aziraphale’s soft gasp was a dagger to his gut.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale said. He scooted still closer, pulling Crowley even tighter against his side. The rough metal of the roundabout bit into Crowley’s calves, the wood chips rattled against his dress shoes. He’d probably ruined them, scuffed them beyond all hope of recovery, by wearing them here.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked and then, almost immediately, he laughed and amended, “No, of course not, apologies. I just mean, well– I don’t rightfully know what I mean. It’s a stupid thing to ask someone.”

Crowley took another deep breath, cold in through his nose, warm out through his mouth.

“Yeah,” he eventually agreed, “it is. S’okay though, know what y’meant.” The world felt like it was still slowly spinning around him for all that the roundabout was no longer spinning.

Aziraphale shifted and Crowley prepared for him to move away, only to be surprised when warm lips pressed against his temple.

“He was a good snake,” Aziraphale told him and it didn’t feel like a lie at all. “I can think of no one better to live up to the Anthony J Crowley name.”

Somehow, that did what nothing else had been able to yet and freed a few tears from their prison behind Crowley’s eyes. He raised the hand not trapped between their bodies and dashed them away furiously. He knew that if he began to cry now he’d never stop, and _She_ was still too close, her presence too real, for that to happen.

“S’not true,” he managed and what he meant was that Junior had deserved a lot more than whatever shitty legacy came with Crowley’s name, but he didn’t have it in him to explain that just then.

Aziraphale did not reply, and they lapsed back into silence. The music shifted again, towards something more overtly romantic, and Crowley suddenly realized he couldn’t wait any longer. There was too much, way too much, sitting on him just then. Junior and Eric and fuckin’ Hastur and Haistwell and his Mother and the words he’d–

It was too much.

He exhaled everything in him in one great whoosh.

Unhelpfully, the playlist ticked over again and he almost decided to forgo the whole affair because he could not, would not, say what he wanted to say to fuckin’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You.” Why the _fuck_ had he even put it on the list? What the fuck was he thinking? His life was already enough of a goddamned cliche, he didn’t want– Except now Aziraphale was looking at him, expectant, and well, being a cliche wasn’t the end of the world.

“‘Zirapahle,” he murmured, then paused. How was one supposed to say _that?_ Just say it? Three words just thrown out into the world with no lead-up?

He couldn’t do that. Aziraphale deserved more (deserved better than Crowley, really, but for some reason he kept choosing him and Crowley was just selfish enough to grab on and not let go. He’d been miserable these last few weeks.).

“Yes, dear?” Aziraphale said after Crowley stared at him, open-mouthed, for an entire verse of the song.

Casting about for what to say, Crowley tipped his head back and stared up at the sky above them. Then, impulsively, he grabbed Aziraphale’s hand and tilted them both backward so they lay looking up at the stars with their legs dangling from the roundabout. He raised their still clasped hands and pointed upward. The stars were dim here, London was far too bright, even as far from the center as they were, but a few standouts shone through, including–

“Whassat?” he asked, centering their hands on a bright dot. It outshone all the other nearby stars, twinkling merrily away without a care in the world.

“Umm.” Crowley rolled his head to the side to see Aziraphale staring upward, face scrunched in concentration. He’d had a fair amount of wine as well, Crowley abruptly remembered.

“Alpha Cen- no, that’s not it. You said that one’s visible from Australia. Hm, I know we talked about it, I remember that vaguely triangle squiggle.” He traced their clasped hands over the area in a wobbly approximation of a triangle. “Perhaps, oh! Cygni?”

Crowley let their hands drop, grunting when his own hit his ribs.

“Cygnus, angel,” he said. “The swan. And kinda. S’called Deneb.”

“Deneb,” Aziraphale repeated and though he said it correctly there was just enough uncertainty there to make it sound foreign and strange.

“Always liked Deneb. They’re the head of the swan, yes that’s Cygnus,” Crowley laughed, genuinely _laughed_ , at the way Aziraphale puffed with sozzled pride. “You’re very smart.”

“Mm, had a good teacher,” Aziraphale said as he laced his fingers together over his stomach.

“Shuddup.” Crowley remembered he had a point to all this and tried to wrangle the conversation back around. “So, Deneb. They’re a big star, one of the biggest. S’called a supergiant, not quite the biggest, but almost.”

“It’s very nice,” Aziraphale assured him, clearly baffled about where all this was going.

“They’re going to die. Violently.” The glass in Crowley’s chest was cutting at him again, but he kept going, determined to get this out. “Big explosion, shedding layers, fire. The whole thing.”

“Oh.” He turned to look at Aziraphale. “That’s awfully sad, isn’t it?”

Crowley started to shrug and thought better of it. Wouldn’t look very cool laying down anyway.

“I guess; s’just what happens. Supergiants burn fast and hard. They’re not meant to last.”

“Crowley…”

“M’gettin’ there,” Crowley promised, because he was. “That’s not you.”

“I’m not… a supergiant star?”

“No. You’re… You’re a white dwarf’s what you are.” Ugh, get it together Crowley, he thought, that was barely a coherent sentence.

“I’m… another star?” Aziraphale spoke slowly, clearly trying to pick out the meaning from Crowley’s slurred words and coming up short.

Crowley jabbed one finger at the sky, triumphant because he’d so nearly gotten it. “Hot! So hot, the hottest, really.”

“Oh! Crowley, that’s very sw–”

“And so bloody _dim_.”

“Well, that’s less sweet.”

Crowley ignored him, sure that if he didn’t keep going now he’d lose his nerve altogether. His voice was quieter as he continued, “Always liked white dwarfs… dwarves… Fuckin’ Tolkien. Those stars.”

Aziraphale did not speak, so Crowley pressed on. “They’re what’s left after the big one, ya know? A big ol’life of light and growing and dying and pain and then the explosion and then woosh.” He swept his hand across the sky, an imagined wave of plasma trailing behind it. “White dwarf.”

He felt Aziraphale turn to look at him, but he couldn’t look away from the stars just yet.

“I’m afraid I don’t… understand what you’re saying,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley sighed. He turned to face Aziraphale, their noses nearly brushing.

He took a breath of the shared air between them.

“I’m saying I’m in love with you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. Then, louder, “OH!”

Crowley was clearly still drunk, because he felt like one moment they were lying side by side, looking at each other, and then he blinked and Aziraphale was straddling his waist, hands on either side of his head, gazing down at him with a broad smile lighting his features. Crowley stared at him, dazzled by his beauty.

“Is that, er, okay?” he asked.

Aziraphale laughed, very quietly. He leaned in, and Crowley was so distracted by all the places where their bodies touched that he quite forgot how badly the position should have hurt.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale said. He pressed his forehead to Crowley’s, the tips of their noses together, his gaze so arresting that Crowley couldn’t have looked away even if he wanted to. “Of course it’s okay. It’s perfect.”

“Yeah?” _Shut up shut up shut u_ p, Crowley mentally chanted to himself. Why are you asking him? Don’t remind him this is a terrible idea. What the fuck is wrong with you? “Really?”

“Yeah,” Aziraphale said. He tilted his head and placed a tender kiss on Crowley’s lips, pulling back before Crowley could properly register what was happening. “I love you, too.”

“Yeah?” Now Crowley did groan aloud. “Sorry, I just mean–”

“I know what you mean, dear,” Aziraphale said. “And the answer is still _yeah_. I love you.”

A grin stole its way across Crowley’s face, fighting through the exhaustion that weighed him down. “That’s–” he paused and laughed, and would deny 'til his dying day that it was a giggle, “That’s gay.”

* * *

A few hours later found them ensconced in the backseat of a rideshare, called in the dead of night long after the water bottles Aziraphale forgot he'd grabbed had been drunk and the chill night air had done its part in sobering them (though not enough for either to even begin to consider fetching Crowley's keys from Eve). So instead they sat in the back of someone else's car. It was a bit small and the faux leather seats were covered in a prickly wool throw, but Aziraphale had Crowley up against his side once more.

The difference between the Crowley of that moment and the Crowley at the party was astounding, though understandable to be sure. Aziraphale couldn't help but berate himself for just how blind he'd been, no matter that he knew he would never have been able to predict that anything tonight would happen like it did. Crowley looked so fragile with his face tucked up into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck, the gentle whuff of his breathing across Aziraphale’s collar, and it all still felt like Aziraphale’s fault.

He could circle his arm around Crowley's shoulders easier than he'd like and was overthinking everything in his worry—Was Crowley eating alright? Was he too stressed? Was he unwell at all? All of it simmered and stewed in him until it became the worst sort of homogenous mixture of worry and fear, one he'd never be able to put into words without sounding terrible.

His phone pinged, almost unheard through the laser focus of his attention, which was firmly oriented towards holding Crowley close. His half-asleep heartbeat was pressed up against his chest, just on the other side of their ribs, so close to touching and synchronizing their rhythms.

Carefully, Aziraphale pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. It was Professor Haistwell.

“Mm?” Crowley murmured without opening his eyes.

“Just checking my phone,” Aziraphale told him. The faintest traces of a grimace crossed Crowley’s face and he shifted a little, pulling out his own before sighing and shoving it away again.

"Eve?" Aziraphale asked gently, letting Crowley re-settle himself as he liked. He noticed how the other man bit back a hiss, a half-formed thing under his breath, when he finally leaned all his weight on Aziraphale, but nothing seemed amiss otherwise so Aziraphale set it aside in favor of more immediate concerns. There was always the morning to prod Crowley about aches and pains. Perhaps another massage.

"Yeah, s’old lady." Crowley yawned loudly. "Don' wanna talk, 'sss too much." He waved his hand in front of them before letting it drop.

"Alright, I'll let them know." Opening up his own messages, Aziraphale read the first and suppressed a sharp surge of vindictive pleasure. Professor Haistwell’s first message read in no uncertain terms that Professor Darrington was henceforth disinvited from ens’ home. Aziraphale looked down at Crowley; his eyes were once more shut, his breathing slowing even as he rested more weight on Aziraphale. Crowley loved him. Crowley _loved_ him and Crowley had been hurt so many times by the people who were meant to love him back. Aziraphale made a silent vow in the back of a rideshare to never be one of those people. With that thought still in mind, he carefully typed a reply to Professor Haistwell with his off-hand.

[Professor H Friday 8:52 pm]  
From this point Dr. Darrington will not be   
involved in matters of those I am advising.   
I am very sorry, Aziraphale I hadn't known.

[Professor H Friday 8:59 pm]  
Please let me know if you've found Crowley

[Professor H Friday 10:16 pm]  
Aziraphale?

[Professor H Friday 11:55 pm]  
Please have Crowley text Eve, we're very   
worried

[Professor H Friday 11:55 pm]  
Sorry, wasn't supposed to say that, not   
worried, don't tell Crowley

[Saturday 12:00 am]  
We're alright. I found him. He was at your old   
park.

[Professor H Saturday 12:01 am]  
Oh thank goodness

[Professor H Saturday 12:02 am]  
Eve and I were very worried

[Professor H Saturday 12:04 am]  
dont tell him that!!!!!!!! -Eve

[Saturday 12:13 am]  
I won't. Please relay to Mrs Sargon that he   
saw your message but is too tired to answer.   
We're currently on our way home to sleep   
this all off for a bit. 

[Saturday 12:18 am]  
My home, I mean.

[Professor H Saturday 12:25 am]  
Whatever you say, son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eve: I will kill god for a single (1) white boy idiot  
> Eve: _looks at Aziraphale_  
>  Eve: I will kill gods for two white boy idiots  
> Eve: I'm their mom now
> 
> 1We discovered while writing the chapter that the name for these is not obvious haha, so! this is what we mean; [return to text]
> 
>   
> 
> 
> Edit: [smolalienbee](https://smolalienbee.tumblr.com/post/626440387425353728/aziraphales-heart-stilled-in-his-chest-suddenly) drew this absolutely amazing take on the merry-go-round scene and we're both still reeling tbh, please please go look at their art, you deserve the treat;
> 
>   
> 


	19. Of Thin Lines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't see it, the amazingly talented [smolalienbee](https://smolalienbee.tumblr.com/post/626440387425353728/aziraphales-heart-stilled-in-his-chest-suddenly) drew a scene from last chapter which can be found at that link. Please go bask in its glory and give them all the love in the world. 
> 
> content warning for this chapter: discussion of pet death, including burying said pet. There is a link in the chapter to skip that scene with a more detailed summary. Continued references to Crowley's past, nothing new or explicit though. 
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for the amazing response to this fic. We're so happy you love these idiots as much as we do.

"Come now, love," Aziraphale murmured, shaking his companion gently. Crowley had nodded off as they drove, leaned up against Aziraphale’s chest with Aziraphale’s arm around his shoulders, holding Crowley tight enough to reassure himself that he wouldn't wisp away at dawn like morning fog.

"Mhrngff?" Crowley grumbled, nuzzling into the crook of Aziraphale's neck with a soft smile and Aziraphale nearly melted at how innocently content the man in his arms was. It felt like a dream, too perfect to be real, and even though Crowley was hurting from life's slings and arrows today, Aziraphale couldn't imagine thinking of him as anything less than entirely worthwhile.

"Get up, you don't have to wake; I'll lead you, but I cannot pick you up from inside the car, my love." Oh, and Aziraphale's heart sang with that endearment and he felt his entire soul ring, clear and sweet like bells, whenever he said it, resonating through his thoughts and chest. He _loved_ Crowley, deeply and dearly, and now he could _say_ it because Crowley loved him too!

Crowley groaned and rose from his spot in a slow arc not unlike a zombie. Aziraphale waved thanks at the driver, adding a hefty tip through the phone application, gladly guided Crowley up to his flat, and bustled them both inside. He was rather tired himself, not the same sort of bone-deep weary Crowley seemed to be, and for once Aziraphale's insomnia was useful.

They stood just inside the doorway for a few moments as Aziraphale fretted; what was he meant to do now? They were home, they were safe; _Crowley_ was safe and found, no one else needed telling about it and… well, just what was there left to do? Surely there was _something_ , but Aziraphale just couldn't seem to work through the problem let alone find the proper answer with his head feeling so foggy and dream-hazed.

Then his stomach growled and Aziraphale's cheeks heated in response before he remembered that Crowley had barely eaten either.

"Oh, my dear boy," Aziraphale pulled Crowley close and cupped his jaw gently before pressing a kiss to his cheek. "We best get some food in you, you barely ate anything! I know it's not so good as Haistwell's soup, but I think this time of night calls for cheese and pickle, hm?"

Crowley garbled a sound that didn't quite seem applicable in this situation even as he nodded and let Aziraphale pull him towards the couch where they usually studied. Azirpahale's heart swelled as he watched Crowley sit and immediately sprawl out on the couch—his head shoved deep into the throw pillow Crowley claimed to hate but had always gravitated towards when he was over. His legs seemed overlong and awkwardly gangly as they stuck out over the opposite arm. Aziraphale had worried so much that he might never see Crowley there again. There'd been something missing from his flat these last two weeks, and now there wasn't. It was a good feeling, as if he was overfull in all the best of ways.

Darting into the kitchen, Aziraphale made two cheese and pickle sandwiches and scarfed his own down as he plated Crowley's. After a moment of thought he added a few biscuits as well — Aziraphale at least had gotten to eat his soup course.

He set the plate on the low table and leaned over, placing his hand on the center of Crowley's chest to steady himself and press a kiss to Crowley's forehead. Or, at least, that's what he'd intended to do until Crowley's eyes shot open and his mouth pulled open in a silent scream, the only sounds that escaped strangled into a whine at the back of his throat. Aziraphale snatched his hand back like he'd been burnt and fell to his knees as Crowley pushed himself into a shaking, sitting position, gasping for air but managing only short, aborted breaths. His back was curled in so he hunched over his knees like he was hiding, and one hand clutched at the fabric of his shirt, his fingers curled like claws.

"Cr– Crowley! Are you alright?!" Aziraphale whispered loudly, his voice strained and tense, his hands up and palms out, wanting to press and touch and hold Crowley until everything was better but unsure what the issue was in the first place other than the mantra of _hurt, he's hurt, my Crowley is hurt_ running through his head, followed rapidly by the worst of his anxious thoughts.

Crowley gasped for breath once more, twice, and tapped the fingers of the hand flung out on the sofa in a methodical beat, each one second long. "Fifteen…" Crowley slurred a whisper, trailing off and then breathing in slowly, deep, and releasing a hiss of pain when it caught in his chest.

"I, um," Crowley started, sounding far more normal and even-voiced than Aziraphale was suddenly alright with, seeing how terribly he'd reacted. Just how well did Crowley hide his pain? How often did he drink too much and seemed sober until he no longer could pretend? Ice fell down Azirpahale's spine at the realization as Crowley continued to speak. "I got hurt. Earlier today, 's probably just some bruised ribs, pulled a muscle over 'em maybe…"

"Crowley," Aziraphale said simply, after a moment or two, chancing a gentle touch at the man's jaw, fitting Crowley's chin between his own thumb and forefinger and softly suggesting he move to _look_ at him. " _Crowley_ ," Aziraphale murmured again, unsure what sort of expression he was making exactly, but whatever it was it turned Crowley's eyes soft and… resigned, perhaps.

"Might be broken. Nothin' big, can't feel it on my lungs or anythin', just. Hairline. Maybe." Crowley admitted, and the whole thing felt rather hard-won and certainly like Aziraphale had found the worst prize of the bunch.

"Oh Crowley–" Aziraphale said, and gasped, suddenly remembering, "Oh, and when you arrived at the party! I pulled at you my dear, and I hurt you. I made it _worse_." Aziraphale felt like wailing, like his heart had stopped in his chest for one cold, damning second. His hands and arms were suddenly detached from the rest of him—desperate, terrible things that they were—and every desire he had to bundle the man up against his chest was disgusting because together they _hurt_ Crowley.

"No, no no no, angel," Crowley turned with a wince and gathered both Aziraphale's hands in his own, pulling them up to his face to kiss his knuckles and then turned them over to kiss his palms, and once more on his left wrist, just over the median nerve where the skin was the most sensitive. "No, it's not you, you didn't hurt me; it's alright, 's just me bein' stupid. 'M sorry."

Aziraphale sighed and shifted to sit on the couch at his side and leaned forward to rest his forehead against Crowley's. "Alright," he breathed, "Just– just please, _tell_ me when you're hurt? I think it might kill me if I were the one to make it worse for you. I– I want to make your life _better_ , Crowley, not something you have to grit your teeth and endure, or Lord forbid in any way make it worse for you…"

Crowely nodded and leaned forward, just a bit, to kiss Aziraphale gently, barely more than a chaste press of their lips together before he pulled away. "I'll try."

And that was that, Aziraphale supposed. That was all he could ever ask, that Crowley do his best. "Alright you, go eat, you've got quite a bit of drink in you to soak up."

Surprisingly, or perhaps not such a surprise anymore, Crowley didn't do anything more than grumble a little at being told what to do, before he obeyed with a small smile on his face. Aziraphale stood, leaned to kiss the crown of Crowley's head and smooth his palm over his hair, and marched to the bathroom. He had a first aid kit here that hopefully had bandages and a cold compress, or at least a bag of peas in his freezer if nothing else.

He located the kit quickly. It had one of those crunch and cool compresses that chilled through chemical reaction, so he broke it to let it do what it needed, hoping it would be cold by the time he returned to Crowley. He waffled about taking the whole kit or just the bandages, because what if he needed more, or the disinfectant? But he didn't want to scare Crowley somehow with the appearance of the bright red box…

Sense eventually won out over his anxiety; there was someone directly needing his care and that made it a little easier to ignore the what-ifs. He brought the whole kit, holding the compress out in his hand.

"You're meant to wrap ribs when they're hurt, right?" Aziraphale asked quietly, kneeling once more beside Crowley on the floor by the couch, his chest scant centimeters from Crowley's sharp knees, laying his hand carefully on Crowley's thigh to catch his attention.

"Mhm," Crowley shrugged with one shoulder, “Can’t remember ever having ‘em wrapped before, but I’ve never actually fractured a rib, so who knows. Sounds 'bout right, though. Biscuit, angel?" There were three left, Crowley hadn't been able to eat more than one on his own, not after the sandwich taking up real estate in his stomach alongside a sea of wine.

"Maybe in a bit, dear. Do you– do you mind if I?" Aziraphale asked, gesturing at Crowley's front, to which the man nodded and Aziraphale took a deep, steadying breath before carefully pushing the jacket off Crowley's shoulders. It fell to the couch with a thump and suddenly there was an unknowable tension in the air. Aziraphale struggled for words to describe what had changed—just now, in the last few hours, in the last day, in the last two weeks— it was far bigger and unidentifiable in any language he knew (a brief part of him mourned never learning German, for there would surely be a compound word here that would do). It was altogether, utterly… ineffable, was the best he could scrounge up, though even that seemed lacking.

The shirt followed, Aziraphale blessed his hands for how steady they were when by all rights they ought to shake in time with the wild beat of his heart. He deftly unbuttoned the front of Crowley's shirt and pushed that off his shoulders as well, leaving the man before him bare-chested. He’d seen Crowley’s chest before, at his childhood home, and even been closer before (waking up with Crowley’s bare back pressed to his own chest, breathing in time with him and never wanting to move from that spot). But, he had never been both this close and this alert. Crowley was pale and thin, his ribs visible against his skin as they expanded with each breath. He didn’t look unhealthy, though Aziraphale thought he’d had a bit more heft to him at Fell Manor. He wasn’t bruised yet, but there were clear injuries across his entire torso, raised and swollen spots in angry red, the very centers of a few white with the force of the impacts Crowley had endured.

Aziraphale drew in a shaking breath and reached behind towards the table to pick up the cold compress.

"Which side hurts the most, love?" He asked softly, Crowley grunted and raised a hand rather than speak, and Aziraphale knew that if he looked, Crowley's eyes would be focused on him, watching every movement with an unreadable gaze. Aziraphale laid the compress on the worst of the injuries and curled his unoccupied hand around the jut of Crowley's hip, his thumb smoothing over the delicate curve of bone under the skin. Crowley shivered and Aziraphale looked up, meeting his gaze, unable to regret the way his breath caught in his throat at Crowley’s heated look.

"Cold?" Aziraphale whispered, feeling suddenly hoarse. He set aside the compress before letting his hand find its place on Crowley's other hip. Aziraphale's fingers flexed, pressing into smooth skin, reveling in the sensation and give. He tilted his wrists slightly back and forth in time with each other and Crowley's body rocked easily in his grasp, eliciting a sharp, short inhale from above. Aziraphale pulled away, worried he had hurt Crowley. His eyes snapped up once more. Crowley's gaze had turned hungry and Aziraphale realized just how long he’d been staring at Crowley’s hips and stomach in the first place. His hands felt oddly empty now, hovering in the space between them.

"Sorry," Crowley said after a moment, his voice low and gravelly, that same indefinable sensation from earlier like silk-draped steel, dense and firm between them.

"No, no, my dear. It– It's alright. Let's, ah, why don't we get you wrapped up, hm?" Aziraphale tittered and reached for the roll of bandages, quickly and mindlessly wrapping them around Crowley's—God _bless_ the man—thin chest, doing his best to ignore how close his lips and face was to Crowley's torso every time the bandages looped around his back.

"B– bed, I think, love." Aziraphale stood quickly and nearly unbalanced at the sudden rush of blood from his head, at the quickness of his movement. "You're tired, it's been a long day, we best sleep for a week, I think."

Crowley returned the awkward smile Aziraphale felt on his face with something more genuine and soft, warming Aziraphale just enough to let the worry melt from him like candle wax. Aziraphale leaned over to wrap an arm under Crowley's shoulders and lifted him easily to his feet. He fussed a little when Crowley's breath came sharp once more, but there was nothing to be done save to kiss him gently, nearly obscuring the handsome blush high on Crowley's cheeks, as a distraction.

"Bed," Crowley agreed, leaning heavily against Aziraphale, wrapping an arm over his shoulders and letting the broader man manhandle him along the way with a small laugh, sounding lighter than he had all evening, "But only if you kiss me and I can tell you I love you again before we sleep, and when we wake up again too."

"Tempting deal."

"You don't say."

"Where do I sign?" They laughed softly under their breath and traded whispers and kisses as they changed into sleepwear—Aziraphale into his customary pajamas and Crowley into a pair of joggers found rolled in the bottom of Aziraphale's dresser—and curled up together. Aziraphale counted Crowley’s breaths until they fell asleep, the faintest blush of dawn beginning to hint at the horizon.

* * *

As usual, sunlight woke Aziraphale long before he was actually ready to be done sleeping. He might not like to fall asleep, but just _once_ he’d like to wake naturally and not filled to the brim with hatred for the terrible thing in the sky.

“Bloody awful,” he muttered, shoving his face deeper into his pillow and hoping that might be enough to let him go back to sleep. It took a moment to register that he’d heard something in response to that; someone had snickered.

He twisted, alarmed for all of the three seconds it took to detangle himself from the sheets enough to spot Crowley laying on his back on the other side of the bed. The other man had one arm crooked behind his head and the other draped across his stomach. He was looking up at the ceiling, but his head was turned slightly towards Aziraphale as if he’d only just looked away.

“Crmph,” Aziraphale grumbled. He was awake, but only on a technicality and really would prefer to drift back off. The corner of Crowley’s mouth ticked up in a grin.

“Oh, you _are_ a poet in the mornings,” he said.

Aziraphale couldn’t allow that insult to lie. He abandoned his pillow and turned onto his side, grabbing Crowley and pulling him close, trapping him in place with one leg slung over his and an arm carefully laid across the top of his chest, closer to Crowley's shoulders than his sternum. He buried his face in the side of the pillow Crowley had been using.

“Oi!” Crowley protested. But, he allowed himself to be moved and then immediately began to play with Azirpahale’s curls, lightly scraping his nails across Azirpahale’s scalp as he did so.

“Nfir,” Aziraphale grumbled, “Sterly.”

“What was that?” Crowley laughed.

Aziraphale groaned but turned his head so he wasn’t speaking directly into down. “I said,” he repeated without opening his eyes, “no fair, it’s too early.”

“Aw, baby,” Crowley mocked.

“Yes, well, it does lose some punch on repetition.”

“Quite.” Crowley put on an over-the-top emulation of Aziraphale’s accent, earning himself another groan.

“No reason to get up,” Crowley said, “You can sleep some more.”

“Mgfh.”

Aziraphale drifted for a bit, never quite managing to find sleep again. Instead, he passed the time counting Crowley’s heartbeats where he could feel them against his nose and enjoying the slow drag of his fingertips through his hair. Eventually, his stomach protested the extended lie-in and he opened his eyes again.

“Oh!” Aziraphale started. Crowley had shifted so he could watch Aziraphale and his face was awfully close. Aziraphale took the rare opportunity to study Crowley’s eyes, drinking in the details. Crowley wore his sunglasses so often that even though Aziraphale had seen his face bare dozens of times now, it still felt intimate. There were the most beautiful little specks of gold right in the most amber bits, fading out to a rich brown right at the very rim of his iris. He was currently watching Aziraphale with such a soft, open expression that it almost hurt. Oh, how he wished he could tell–

Aziraphale’s thoughts stuttered to a stop. He _could_ tell Crowley how he felt.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Crowley said and then immediately winced, clearly regretting his choice of words.

“I love you,” Aziraphale responded, unable to hold it back any longer now that he’d recalled he was allowed to say it. “Good morning, my dear.”

Crowley sucked in a huge breath, startled by Aziraphale’s words. “You–” he cut himself off and his expression crumpled as he remembered the events of the night before.

Aziraphale agreed with the sentiment. It all seemed so much worse in the sober light of morning. He really tried not to hate people, but Aziraphale found that he despised Crowley’s mother. The thought erased the last vestiges of comfortable drowsiness from his mind.

“I’m surprised you’re awake,” Aziraphale said, trying to recapture the light mood. Perhaps Crowley could be distracted from, well, everything.

“Garden hours,” Crowley murmured, clearly not entirely there. Right, Aziraphale remembered now that Crowley usually woke around 4 or 5 to get the chores done before the garden center opened for the day. Despite his worry for the other man, he couldn’t help but shudder a bit at the thought.

“Ah,” he said, still striving for light. “Well, I suppose that’s alright then. Thank you for not waking and scolding my poor mint, you know it’s delicate.”

That seemed to get through to Crowley at least a little because his gaze refocused on Aziraphale and he snorted, “It’s _mint_ , angel.”

Aziraphale pat himself on the back at a distraction well done. He’d heard Crowley’s thoughts on mint before and knew they could only be summed up as ‘detailed and vitriolic.’ If there was anything that could drag him back from dark thoughts it was plants that refused to be cowed.

“Whyever should that matter, dear?” he asked.

“Doesn’t,” Crowley said, warming to the topic, “Mint’s just so eager. Grows all over the bloody place. Doesn’t listen. I’m very clear about what happens when they… don’t… listen.”

Aziraphale watched as he trailed off, the same terrible expression from before returning. Worse, this time his eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale breathed.

Crowley sniffed and covered his eyes, clearly trying to get control of himself. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“No, no, none of that. You had,” Aziraphale paused and sat up, cross-legged, scooting around so his knees were pressed against Crowley’s side. Then, as gently as he could, he moved Crowley’s hand away from his face, revealing red-rimmed eyes.

“Crowley, you had possibly the worst day I have ever heard of anyone having, certainly worse than any I’ve endured.” Crowley opened his mouth to protest but Aziraphale kept going, uninterested in hearing Crowley minimize his pain, “Now, we don’t have to talk about things. We can pretend yesterday never happened if you’d like to, but please, don’t pretend you’re okay? I promise I’ll never think less of you for being human.”

Crowley stared at him, blinking rapidly and clearly trying to process his words. After a few minutes he recovered his hand from Aziraphale and scrubbed at his face.

“Crowley?”

“‘M fine,” Crowley said, thickly. Then, he snorted. “No, that’s a lie. I’m bloody fuckin’ wiped.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “I bet. What say we skip the whole being a person routine today and watch some genuinely terrible television? I’m sure you can recommend something.”

Crowley peered up at him. “You’d watch Jeremy Kyle with me?”

Aziraphale shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest who that is, but darling, you must know I’d do anything you wanted, so long as you did it with me.”

Crowley stared in silence for a long moment before speaking. “That was… the cheesiest thing anyone’s ever said, I think.”

“I’m only getting started dear,” Aziraphale promised. “I love you and now I know you love me and I shan’t apologize for being a bit cheesy with my boyfriend.” Especially not when being a bit cheesy chased that gutted look away from Crowley’s face. Aziraphale thought he’d tear the stars from the sky if it helped even a little.

“Ugh, gross,” Crowley said, but he was smiling again so Aziraphale counted the whole conversation as a win.

“Be that as it may,” he said primly, “You knew what you were signing up for.” He began to extract himself from the covers, taking care not to jostle Crowley’s ribs too badly.

“Yeah, to tutor a totally hopeless astronomy student,” Crowley held out one hand and Aziraphale helped him to his feet, “Luckily for him, he’s cute and I’m the generous sort.”

“Cute, huh?” Aziraphale gave in to the temptation to kiss the tip of Crowley’s nose, delighting in the outraged expression that filled his face. “Should I be jealous?”

“Absolutely not. I’m definitely breaking up with him, he’s the worst in the morning apparently.” Crowley’s irritated expression lost quite a bit of weight when his stomach growled loudly.

“Perhaps I can delay that by offering you cocoa and a scone?”

Crowley glowered at him. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Depends on if the cocoa has those little marshmallows.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale nodded seriously. He put on his slippers and handed Crowley a dressing gown. “So, if I say of course, I’d never have cocoa without those, do I still have a boyfriend?”

“Hmm.” Crowley pretended to think about it. “What flavor scones?”

By the time they settled together on the couch, cocoa poured and scones heated, Crowley had faux-grudgingly admitted that the scone and cocoa bought Aziraphale his clemency for the nose kiss. Aziraphale handed the remote to Crowley and watched fondly as he searched for something suitably awful for them to watch. Eventually, he landed on what appeared to be a talk show.

“Jeremy Kyle?”

Crowley nodded, mouth overfull with scone. He took a huge swig of cocoa to wash it down. “Me’n Eve watch it sometimes. Take bets on the paternity tests.”

“Oh how–” Azirpahale wanted to be able to say he thought that sounded terrible, to bet on people’s lives like that. But, he was working on being honest with himself and _honestly_ it sounded like fun. So, instead, he took a sip of his own cocoa, raised one eyebrow at Crowley, and asked, “What are the stakes?” The smile he received in return was blinding.

“Usually a pound.” Crowley paused to take another sip, and when he lowered the cup there was a bit of chocolate on his upper lip. “But I don’t have my wallet. I’m sure we can come up with something.”

Aziraphale captured his lips in a kiss, chasing the traces of chocolate and nipping lightly on his bottom lip before he pulled back.

“How’s that for stakes?”

Crowley stared at him, wide-eyed. Eventually, he gathered himself enough to ask, “For when you win?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, that’s for your victories. I think I’d like to save my own for a later date, if that’s alright?”

A blush had crept up Crowley’s neck but he nodded. “Course,” he said, “Probably for the best anyway, you’re not going to win any.”

Crowley finished the last of his scone and set his plate on the coffee table. He twisted around so his head rested on Aziraphale’s lap.

“Easier to claim my prize here,” he said when Aziraphale looked down at him, bemused.

“Oh yes, purely utilitarian, I’m sure.”

“Yep,” Crowley wriggled a bit, getting comfortable, “Now shush, they’re about to tell the story. You have to say whether or not you think he’s the father before the envelope comes out.”

By the time noon rolled around, Aziraphale had won four of seven and elicited a promise from Crowley that he could call in his marker at some point in the next two months.

* * *

The morning had passed in a bit of a haze for Crowley; he ached all over, his torso and hip far more sharply than any other part of him, but everything hurt in the sort of musculoskeletal hangover that only happened after he spent a long time tense. Even the wrist that he’d not thought about for a few weeks after tossing the brace behind his bed was joining the chorus of protests. But, Aziraphale had helped him wrap his ribs the night before and presented him with a few paracetamol with his scone and the pain was a familiar sort of annoyance, the kind he could ignore in favor of enjoying laying in Aziraphale’s lap and winning kisses.

By the time noon rolled around, he was sort of half drifting, paying enough attention to make his guess and claim his prize and then sinking back into thoughtless lassitude.

“That’s different,” Aziraphale murmured and Crowley turned from his inspection of the terrible tartan dressing gown Aziraphale wore back to the telly.

Instead of the usual young-ish pair yelling at each other or plying the audience with their sob story, there was a slightly older woman, perhaps in her late thirties, and a teen boy. The scroll at the bottom of the screen appeared and declared in bold font;

**MUM WANTS TO KICK ME OUT FOR NEW TATTOO**

Crowley’s breath caught in his chest, snagging on all those bits of glass he’d decided to pretend had just vanished. How fucking stupid. He wasn’t less broken because Aziraphale smiled at him or they joked around. He was the same worthless piece of shit he’d been the night before, the same as when he’d been given thirty seconds, and the same as he’d always be. You couldn’t shine shit.

The mum was dispassionately explaining all the things her son had done to deserve being kicked out and Crowley _knew_ it wasn’t his mum, but the tattoo on his face itched and his eyes burned and his ribs ached and all he could hear was _onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten-_

“-wley!”

_eleventwelvethirteenfourteenfifteensixteen_

“Crowley, please, darling.”

_seventeeneighteennineteentwentytwentyonetwentytwo_

“Crowley!” There was something on his face, he was very distantly sure of that, but he couldn’t seem to find the wherewithal to look away from the mum as she talked about how disappointed she was, what trouble her boy was, how he was always bringing trouble to their home.

_twentythreetwentyfourtwentyfivetwentysixtwentyseventwentyeighttwenty-_

“I’m so sorry, my dear.”

Something sharp snapped against his collarbone, startling Crowley badly enough that he blinked. The world slotted back into place around him. The first thing he noticed was that Aziraphale was holding the remote and the telly was tuned to an entirely different channel. He dragged his eyes back around to Aziraphale’s face. The other man set the remote down and rested three fingers on Crowley’s collarbone delicately.

“Are you alright?” he asked and Crowley knew he didn’t mean the lingering sting from the rubber band.

Wordlessly, Crowley shook his head.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered. He shifted a bit, scooting down so it was easier to scoop Crowley into his arms and hold him close. “I love you.”

A ragged sob tore its way from Crowley, shuddering up through him, and he forced himself to breathe deeply lest he start crying and be unable to stop. They sat there, silent save for Crowley’s jagged breaths until finally he felt in control enough to say, “Sorry, love you, too.”

“Please don’t apologize,” Aziraphale said, holding him just a bit tighter. “Your mu– _that woman_ should never have been able to treat you that way and you should never have had to see her again. But, she was and you did have to. I will never judge you for your reaction to that.”

It was a nice thought, though Crowley knew that even someone as understanding as Aziraphale had his limits. He silently vowed to himself not to do anything that might find those limits. Aziraphale seemed to be waiting for a response, so Crowley mumbled something unintelligible and pulled back, sitting up entirely so his back rested against the back of the sofa.

“What’s this?” he asked, gesturing at the telly and hoping to take Aziraphale’s tension off himself.

“Ah, I have no idea,” Aziraphale said, only a little sheepishly. “I was actually attempting to turn it off entirely.”

Crowley snorted. Neither of them moved to pick the remote back up and soon it became obvious that the show was some sort of awful American-import tattoo competition.

“Oh, how dystopian,” Aziraphale murmured. But, Crowley was thinking something very different.

“Do you have a notepad?” he asked.

“Of course.” It was a testament to how concerned Aziraphale was about him that he immediately stood and fetched a notebook and a handful of pens from the piles of school supplies on the table. He handed them to Crowley and then gathered a few books of his own and put the kettle on.

“Sandwich?” He called from the kitchen.

Crowley wasn’t sure that he’d ever felt less like eating, but his vow not to worry Aziraphale was fresh and so he said sure and got to work in the notebook. A few minutes later Aziraphale reappeared with a tray of food that he carefully set on the coffee table before disappearing again. When he finally set down he’d acquired a small pile of books and the notebook Crowley recognized as being for thesis notes.

“Try to eat a sandwich before you take the pills,” Aziraphale told him, gesturing to the tray. Crowley looked and spotted a small collection of pills beside a full water glass. The wild urge to cry again rose in him, but he beat it back.

“Course,” he muttered, taking the top sandwich from the small mountain on the plate. It tasted like ash in his mouth but he ate it mechanically, knowing it would make Aziraphale happy. He was already doing so much for Crowley; the least Crowley could do was try not to worry him more.

As soon as he’d eaten and taken the pills, Crowley picked up the notebook again and—resting it on his knees—got to work sketching and re-sketching and sketching again a shaky version of what he wanted.

The afternoon passed in a comfortable quiet. They’d turned down the telly so it was nothing more than a murmur but neither was really paying attention. Aziraphale steadily worked his way through his pile of books, taking rapid notes in a cramped hand while Crowley drew. After a little while, Crowley allowed himself to tip sideways so he leaned against Aziraphale’s side. Every so often, Aziraphale would turn and press his face into the crown of Crowley’s head, as if assuring himself that Crowley was still there.

Eventually, as the shadows began to lengthen, Crowley thought he’d gotten what he wanted designed. He’d talk to the artist of course and he was sure there would be changes, but the shape of it was solid in his head. He set the notebook aside, carefully closing the cover so that Aziraphale couldn’t see. He knew Aziraphale liked his tattoos, he really did. But, he could feel the thirty-count ticking away in the back of his head and wasn’t sure he was up to seeing him disapprove of the plan to get another just then.

“Aziraphale?” he asked, very quietly. Aziraphale looked up from his own work, squinting a little at focusing on something further away than his book. Crowley smiled at him.

“Come on,” he said, “Let’s go.”

“Hmm?”

Crowley stood and very slowly took the book from Aziraphale’s hands. The other man blinked at him, fighting to surface from his research haze.

“It’s late,” Crowley said. “Come to bed.” Oh, that was a thrill to say. He liked the shape of it on his tongue, liked the ability to invite Aziraphale to bed, to be with him.

Aziraphale stood. He stretched, arching his back and revealing the gentle curve of his belly, and then leaning forward. Crowley watched him, suddenly hungry for something very different than a pickle and cheese sandwich. Aziraphale straightened up and smiled at him and Crowley returned it.

“Come on,” he said again, finding anything else at all hard to say. He took Aziraphale’s hand and pulled him into the bedroom.

* * *

Crowley was awake before Aziraphale, again, and he took a few minutes to curl up against Aziraphale's back, slotting his knees behind his legs and wrapping an arm over his waist. The man let out a couple of muffled words and wiggled back against him and life was good. He ached, of course, it all still hurt like a bitch, but he was simultaneously too comfortable to actually get up. Besides, Aziraphale was here; what other place in the flat could offer him anything better than that?

After a few minutes, Aziraphale jolted slightly and shifted, grousing the entire time. Crowley thought he caught a few half-formed curses towards the sun and had to work not to laugh. Aziraphale’s inability to tolerate the mornings was an incredibly endearing trait and one that Crowley felt honored to have discovered. Aziraphale ended up with his head partially buried in the gap between their pillows. Crowley straightened his legs out so his knees weren’t jabbing into Aziraphale’s side, then, after a few seconds’ consideration decided to risk taking the hand that had ended up by his face. Aziraphale didn’t so much as twitch, so Crowley amused himself tracing the lines of his knuckles and trying to figure out if he’d had a manicure or if his nails were just as naturally perfect as the rest of him.

He had no concept of how much time had passed when Aziraphale finally opened his eyes. Crowley was still holding his hand and when he saw the slivers of blue appear he grinned and pressed a kiss to the pulse point of Aziraphale’s wrist, drawing forth a sleepy smile from the other man. He loved that spot. He loved Aziraphale. Everything else was total shit, but not this. Not them.

“I got an appointment,” Crowley said without preamble.

“Hmm?” Aziraphale clearly wasn’t quite awake yet. Crowley smiled at him.

“For a tattoo. My guy does appointments by text. I messaged him earlier and he’s got some time this afternoon.” It had only occurred to Crowley an hour after messaging Reggie for the appointment that he wasn't sure where his wallet was. He'd texted back to cancel and received a firm, "I know you're good for it," along with a smiley face that seemed far more ominous than Crowley thought the designers intended. 

Aziraphale yawned and nodded. “Of course, my dear,” he said. He seemed about to say something else but was interrupted by another jaw-cracking yawn.

“We can stop for tea first,” Crowley promised. Now that he was within a few hours of Reggie’s tender mercy, he was eager to be moving.

They managed to make it out the door and to the shop on the corner where Aziraphale bought something far more caffeinated than Crowley was used to seeing him drink. Then, on a whim (and trying to kill the few hours before Reggie had said he could come over), Crowley led them towards a nearby park, thinking that the ducks might have ducklings.

As they walked and sipped their drinks Aziraphale slowly woke up and soon was chattering away about one of the books he’d been reading the previous afternoon. Crowley nodded and made little questioning noises at the appropriate places, but was otherwise content to let Aziraphale lead the conversation, happy to bask in the simple pleasure of the warm sun and his boyfriend and nobody wanting anything from him. He’d muted all notifications except Reggie on his phone and planned on this being a Baratrum-free day, no matter what.

They reached the edge of a small pond and Crowley was gratified to see he was right; there was a little row of ducklings following behind their mum on the other side of the water.

“Crowley?”

Crowley jumped, guiltily realizing he’d not even noticed Aziraphale had stopped talking.

“Shit, sorry, Aziraphale. Head’s in the clouds.”

Aziraphale waved on hand dismissively. “Please don’t worry,” he said with a fond smile. “I know it’s not the most interesting topic.” Crowley started to protest but Aziraphale pressed onward. “I just– I wanted– Hm.” He took a sip of his tea and seemed to find the words he was looking for. “Are you okay?”

“Course,” Crowley said immediately. “Ribs feel loads better today.” He tried for something that might approach a ‘winning smile‘ but Aziraphale wasn’t looking at him.

“Not that, though of course, I’m delighted to hear it. I mean, are you _okay_? With everything. With your– with that woman and Junior and however you were injured.”

Crowley’s throat closed. He wanted to laugh and say, “Of course, angel. You know me!” But, he’d promised not to lie and there was nothing there that could be anything but a lie. He nodded once, then realizing that was just as much of a lie, shook his head, keeping his eyes locked on the ducklings the entire time. The mum had started to groom one of them, gently picking at it and leaving its feathers a ruffled mess.

“Eh,” Crowley finally managed to croak, hoping that was enough.

“Do you want to, ah, talk about any of it?” Aziraphale sounded just as awkward as he felt and at that moment Crowley couldn’t imagine much worse than spilling all the ways he’d been measured and found wanting by his parents or detailing the gaping chasm at the center of his chest where Junior used to be or, god, where to even begin with Ligur and Eric?

He shook his head, barely more than a twitch.

“Dear,” Aziraphale said slowly.

Crowley shook his head again, pulling his phone from his pocket and glancing at the time. 12:04. Reggie had said ‘this afternoon’.

“No time,” Crowley said, “We need to go. Reggie hates when I’m late.” Okay, he’d promised not to lie about how he was doing. Reggie couldn’t care less if Crowley was late, but Aziraphale didn’t need to know that just then.

Aziraphale watched him with a level gaze but when Crowley finally met his eyes for the first time since they stopped walking, he did not protest the obvious deflection.

“Lead the way.”

* * *

Reggie worked out of a dinky, personal studio (really it wasn't much more than a garage set-up), and spoke with a particularly heavy Ukrainian accent. Reggie wasn't his actual name, but Crowley had only ever heard it once while half-drunk and in the middle of getting the snake on the back of his ribs, so really it wasn't any wonder he didn’t remember it. Reggie had done all of his tattoos, other than the sideburn snake, and Crowley had been lucky to find him.

The man didn't have flash sheets, _only_ did custom work, and only took cash but he was also the only tattoo artist willing to reschedule other appointments or keep time open for Crowley. Despite his appearance, Reggie was a gentle guy who liked to do delicate lines and detail work more than he liked the strong blackwork of the American traditional and older styles of tattoos he often got commissioned for. Or, at least, that was the reason he'd given Crowley about why he was willing to make exceptions for doing work on Crowley.

The transfer paper was one of Crowley's favorite parts. The bright purple on his skin made it all feel real, and everything in the world seemed to slot into place _just right_ when he chose to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known by his tattoo artist. Grudgingly Crowley had to admit that if anyone had to know him so well, Reggie at least wouldn't spill any beans about it, considering he didn't spill any beans at all in general.

Reggie was a great guy; they barely talked while he worked except for cursing under their breath at tricky spots every once in a while and the occasional smack upside the head when Crowley flinched and almost fucked up a line. Reggie was, truly, a consummate professional and _that_ was why Crowley returned.

Reggie carefully laid the transfer paper around Crowley's neck and everything slotted into place, he could breathe easier than he ever had, never mind his ribs. The ritual of it all was calming in ways nothing else could seem to get close to. Reggie's hands were always careful and just a bit warm and Crowley leaned his forehead onto the pillow of the chair Reggie had put him in. Most of the tattoo was over his spine and the sides of his neck with only the tail curling at the base of his throat so he got comfortable where he was, breathed deep, and relaxed into the buzzing of the gun.

Reggie smacked him upside the back of the head after Crowley's customary flinch at the first line and Crowley hissed back at him before smiling and settling again. The next few hours passed in a blur; the only real thing in the world was the pressure on his forehead, the buzz of the gun and the sandpaper-raw feel of the needles dragging through his skin, and the swipe of the fucking roughest paper towel he'd ever felt in his life. Until his next tattoo at least.

His breathing was slow and Crowley could barely focus on it at all except for when Aziraphale squeezed his hand or pat it where it lay on his knee, presumably paying far more attention to the book he was reading on his phone—the _scandal_.

Then, Reggie tapped his shoulder and prodded at the joint of it until Crowley growled at him and shifted so the _terror_ of a man—who'd interrupted the only meditation he'd ever managed—could get at his throat. Another half hour—probably, Crowley couldn't manage anything complex like keeping track of time just yet—and the tattoo gun clicked off. The utter lack of low buzzing left the room sounding explicitly soundless and, as always, Crowley wondered if this is what it felt like in one of those anti-sensation chambers where they shoved you in a tank of gel-water or whatever it was and stuck you in the dark until you went at least a little mad.

"You finally done?" Crowley croaked, feeling far more refreshed than he had in a long time, even sleeping beside Aziraphale had been half-ruined by his ribs, but this floating thoughts where nothing was quite interesting enough to think of had watered his soul.

"Done. Brat." Reggie said roughly and shot Crowley such an unimpressed look, as usual, that Crowley couldn't help but feel at home. The large man had rolled up his sleeves at some point and revealed the bright mosaic of pysanka egg patterns encompassing both his forearms like particularly gaudy bracelets. Crowley hadn't ever mentioned it, but they fit him, something so delicate and thin-lined, so brightly unashamed of its roots…

"Yeah, yeah, what about that second-skin stuff? Can't have you cheating me." Crowley groused.

Reggie rolled his eyes at Crowley so expansively he was surprised they hadn't fallen out the side of his head yet. Without another word the man cut up the saniderm and applied it to the fresh tattoo, careful and light-fingered.

"I'll bring the cash by soon," Crowley promised when he thought Reggie was almost done. "Can't believe I forgot my damn wallet."

Reggie grunted. His hand was still resting on the back of Crowley's neck. "No rush," he said, "You can pay me when it doesn't hurt so bad."

Crowley nodded, suddenly remembering how eagerly Reggie had always asked for more 'reference' pictures of Junior when they'd been working on Crowley's sleeves, even long after the snake section was complete. His throat was tight again and he had to blink rapidly to clear his eyes.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Will do."

Reggie squeezed his neck once before backing off and clapping his hands. 

"Now, get out," he commanded without preamble. Crowley snorted and happily acquiesced to Reggie shooing him and Aziraphale out the newly-opened garage door. He resolutely ignored the thumbs up Reggie sent him after eyeing Aziraphale with something that passed for a smile of approval on the giant of a man. God forbid he become an _actual_ regular; he'd have to leave, change his name, and dye his hair or something.

"Hungry, angel?" Crowley mumbled, voice still gravelly from disuse and the hundreds of tiny open wounds on the outside of his vocal cords, holding out his hand for Aziraphale to take. "I could murder a whole cow probably…" He shook just a little, hands and legs trembling as the pain-induced adrenaline inherent in getting the tattoo and the time immediately after faded from his limbs and left him ravenous. Well, he didn't _feel_ hungry, but he knew what he was like, the second he smelt anything good he'd be on it like a bear on a salmon cart.

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale said. “We’re not too far from that wonderful Thai restaurant. Perhaps we could go there?”

Crowley nodded. The portions there were plenty large, he might even clear his plate for once. Riding the last vestiges of the adrenaline before they could entirely abandon him he asked one more question.

“I need to bury Junior. You don’t have to, but, if you wanted, you could, ah, come with me?”

Aziraphale’s smile was soft and more than a little sad.

“I’d be honored, dear.”

[skip to summary]

* * *

Arriving at the garden center felt almost dreamlike to Crowley. They were here because he needed to take care of his friend. To give him the send-off he deserved and should have gotten two days ago.

The awful thing was that he knew, _knew_ , that Junior was dead and yet he’d opened his mouth to call out for the snake as soon as they stepped into the outdoor area. He got as far as breathing in and then he remembered what they were there to do and the air curdled in his lungs like so much expired milk.

He closed his mouth.

Very distantly he heard Aziraphale ask if they should get Eve. Crowley looked at the garden center shop and then up at the windows of Eve’s flat.

“She’s not here,” he said, “Or I guess she might be asleep.” He shrugged, suddenly feeling far too tired to figure out which it was.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Crowley nodded towards the door, “Closed sign. S’still time to be open but we’re not, and there’s no lights. Don’t think she’s here.”

“Ah, perhaps she decided to stay with Professor Haistwell?” Aziraphale asked, but Crowley’s ability to respond was rapidly fading so he only shrugged.

“She doesn’t know yet anyway,” Crowley managed. “Couldn’t tell her before the party and then….”

“Of course.” Aziraphale’s hand tightened around his own. Crowley appreciated it, the pressure reminded him for a moment that there was still a world out there, though it all felt as if it was trickling through treacle just then.

Crowley led them to the small shed between the two greenhouses. He let go of Aziraphale and picked up a shovel. It was heavy, heavier than he thought he’d remembered it being. But, then, he’d never had to use it for anything like this before.

They exited the shed again and paused beneath the tree in the center of the space. Crowley felt at loose ends, unsure what he should do next and unsure of how to figure that out. He was sure he was having thoughts, but they were just out of reach and he was too tired to try and move towards him.

The wind rustled the leaves above him, sending the last afternoon light dancing in a chaotic dappled pattern. Crowley watched one of the brighter patches grow and shrink and begin to grow again.

“Dear,” Aziraphale said, a tugboat yanking Crowley back towards their purpose.

“Right,” Crowley murmured. He looked at the ground beneath the tree and then up at Aziraphale.

“I need to dig it,” he said. “I– He deserves that.”

“Of course, Crowley.” Aziraphale took a step back, giving Crowley the space to work. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Crowley shook his head and then immediately nodded. “Can you– I mean, it’s just, could you– He’s in a box.”

He wasn’t looking at Aziraphale, but there was movement in the periphery of his vision and then a gentle hand cupped the base of his skull, higher than normal in deference to his sore skin and the new tattoo. He tilted his head back a bit, pressing harder into the hold. After a moment it left, a rush of cool air filling the space.

“Of course, love.” Aziraphale was still speaking quietly, Crowly thought, studying the pattern of bark on the tree’s roots. “Where is he?”

Something about Aziraphale referring to Junior as ‘he’, even though he’d been dead for days, gutted Crowley. His eyes welled up.

“Uh, behind the slugs. It’s a shoebox.”

“Alright.”

And then he was alone. Crowley dashed the tears away, but more followed. “Stop it,” he told himself futilely. He tried to ignore them as they continued to fall and instead got to work digging a hole between the two largest roots. He wanted it to be deep enough that Junior would never be disturbed. As he worked the tears kept coming, trickling down his nose and then his neck. They stung his new tattoo and he welcomed the sensation. It was stupid, but the sting made him feel almost like Junior was draped across his shoulders again.

Eventually, he realized that he could only find air in uneven jags, gasping in as much as he could until his ribs ached, and then unable to breathe out until he was almost dizzy with it. He was gripping the shovel too tightly; his hands would be sore if he’d done this while working in the garden. But, there was so little left to do. He likely wouldn’t even have a blister.

He hated that.

He wanted this to leave some mark on him. It wasn’t fair that a fucker like Ligur got to make him hurt, got to bruise him and break him, and Junior, who actually mattered, who he’d actually loved (oh god he’d loved Junior and Junior was gone, he’d never feel him slide across his shoulders or surprise him in the morning again) left nothing.

Crowley finished the hole and leaned the shovel against the tree. There was a slug making its way across the bark. Reflexively, Crowley moved to pick it up before he remembered. Another painful sob tore its way from him.

He heard a door close behind him, footsteps approaching, and suddenly a cool glass fell around Crowley. He was heartbroken, upset beyond measure, but it felt like he was only looking in on those emotions from the outside. He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face dry before tilting his head towards Aziraphale, though he couldn’t bring himself to actually look at him. He thought seeing Aziraphale looking sad might shatter the glass and he was positive that he’d never make it through this if that happened.

“Here he is, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered. He set the box down on the ground beside the hole and backed away.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Crowley sank to his knees, sitting back on his heels. He picked up the box and smoothed his fingers across it. The cardboard was smooth, only marred by the dirt on his hands. It was light, so much lighter than Crowley thought it should be for the weight of what Junior meant to him. He rested it in his lap for a few minutes, trying to find the right words.

Eventually, he leaned forward and set the box in the very bottom of the hole he’d dug. It felt oddly reverent, supplicating himself before the tree and offering the being that had held the better part of his heart for the last ten years. He hoped the tree, that the Earth itself, would find Junior worthy.

He rested one hand on top of the box. It suddenly looked so small in the hole and he was irrationally afraid that Junior was going to feel abandoned or afraid.

“It’s okay, bud,” he whispered. “Th–thank you for being my f–friend.” He remained there for a few shaking breaths until he could justify it no longer and leaned back, using his hands to scoop the soil that had come from the hole over the box.

He wanted to actually say goodbye. He never got to do that. It wouldn’t mean anything now, Junior couldn’t hear him. But the urge was still there.

He tried and failed a few times to summon enough air to force the word from his tight throat, until, finally there was only a little soil left. He began smoothing it, carefully ensuring that there was no reason why anyone might ask about this spot.

When there was nothing left to do, he was forced to acknowledge that he wasn’t going to be able to drag the word from his stupid fucking lungs. Instead, he once again allowed his hand to pause in the middle of the space, just over where Junior would be coiled up.

 _Goodbye,_ he thought as fiercely as he could, mouthing the word and hoping it was enough. Then, again because he’d never be able to say it enough, _you were a good friend._

* * *

Aziraphale watched as Crowley pat down the soil, carefully smoothing his hands across the ground until there was no indication that it had ever been disturbed at all.

“Do you– Is there a–” he cut himself off, trying to find the correct words, unwilling to get this wrong when it meant so very much to Crowley. After a long moment he tried again, “Is there something you want to put there for him?”

Crowley shook his head. “Snakes don’t need things,” he said as he stood, using the tree to pull himself to his feet. “Besides, he’s got this.” He patted the side of the tree twice and finally met Aziraphale’s eyes, his own red-rimmed and exhausted. “He– he always liked the tree, lotsa snails and slugs to eat.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured. He stepped closer, careful to avoid the little grave, and wrapped Crowley in as tight a hug as was safe given his injuries. The other man returned the embrace readily, burying his face in the crook of Aziraphale’s neck and breathing in deeply a few times before pulling back.

“Are you alright, my dear?”

Crowley nodded, scrubbing at his eyes and Aziraphale’s heart ached for him.

“Would you like to– Ah, I mean, you know you’re always welcome at my flat, right?”

That drew forth a very small smile from Crowley. “Yeah, angel,” he said, “I know.” He looked out over the garden center and the smile grew just a tiny bit larger. “I think I want to stay here tonight.” He caught Aziraphale’s gaze and quirked one eyebrow in a hint of the flirtatious look Aziraphale so adored, “But, you could always be a good date and walk me to my door. Might even get a kiss for your trouble.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale felt _settled_ for the first time in days, sure that the flirtation meant Crowley would be alright on his own.

“Mhm,” Crowley pulled him away from the tree. “Might even get to second base if you’re lucky.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Now, how could I ever miss that opportunity? Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Bloody hell, you’re a dork.”

Aziraphale sniffed in mock-offense as they reached the door to Crowley’s studio. Crowley stopped and turned around, leaning back on the door and looking up at him. When Aziraphale hesitated, Crowley laughed and tugged on his hand pulling him off balance so he staggered forward. He came to a stop with one hand on the wall of the shed, just to the left of Crowley's head. Crowley canted his face upward, eyes huge and lips slightly parted.

Aziraphale’s own mouth was suddenly very dry. This was not the time, he told himself, for those sorts of thoughts.

“Are you alright?” he asked, in lieu of pressing him even tighter against the door or capturing Crowley’s lips with his own.

A maelstrom of emotions flashed across Crowley’s face, far too fast for Aziraphale to pick anything out. “I’m fine,” he finally said.

“Hmm.” Aziraphale gave in to temptation just a bit and leaned in to give Crowley a chaste peck before pulling back only far enough to speak, his lips brushing Crowley’s with every movement. “You know, I don’t think I believe you when you use that word.”

He felt Crowley smile against him, even as the other man stole another kiss.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “That’s probably for the best.”

It was the closest Aziraphale thought Crowley had ever come to admitting he wasn’t okay while sober and he felt very warm at the idea that Crowley trusted him enough to say so.

“You know you can stay with me for as long as you’d like, right?” He didn’t think he’d ever wanted to leave Crowley behind less than he did in that moment.

“Heh, yeah, I know.” Crowley slid the pocket door open behind himself and stepped back, putting a bit of space between them. “But, I kinda want to be here when Eve gets home, ya know? She doesn’t know about Junior and I wa– I need to tell her myself.”

Aziraphale understood. He really did. He also knew that his certainty that Crowley would show up with more bruises or run into Professor Darrington or something worse was a product of his own overactive imagination and held no basis in reality. But, the tips of his fingers still remembered the heat of swollen skin around Crowley’s ribs and his ears still rang with the quiet gasps he’d tried to conceal as they wrapped his wounds.

But, those were Aziraphale’s problems, not Crowley’s. It was perfectly reasonable for him to want some alone time with Eve to talk about everything. So, instead of begging for Crowley to come back with him or allow him to stay, Aziraphale forced a smile to his face and wrapped Crowley in another hug, trying to convey in a few moments the depth of his regard.

“I love you,” he whispered in Crowley’s hair, followed by a gentle kiss to seal the words to his flesh. “Please call me if you need anything at all, I will have my phone.”

“Course,” Crowley said, voice muffled by Aziraphale’s neck.

“Thank you.”

Aziraphale held on for as long as he could justify, then he let go and backed away. Immediately, Crowley’s arms came up and wrapped around his own torso and it took everything in Aziraphale not to gather him up again because he knew if he did that he’d never leave.

“I suppose I’ll be going,” he said, drawing the words out.

“Yeah.”

“Right.” He took a few steps away, back out towards the street.

“Wait!”

Aziraphale stopped and turned back, managing to say only, “Yes?” before Crowley crashed into him, drawing him into a desperate kiss. Startled, Aziraphale moaned and Crowley took advantage of the moment to slip his tongue into Aziraphale’s mouth, exploring him as thoroughly as Aziraphale’s hands were exploring Crowley’s lower back. Aziraphale was a well-read man—even among others in his field, he tended to be ahead of the pack there—and as such he’d read a great many romantic scenes. He was rapidly discovering, however, that reading about intimacy could never hold a candle to experiencing it.

How could any mere words capture the nearly inaudible whine that Aziraphale could nearly taste better than hear as Crowley attempted to press even closer to him? How could English or any other language be expected to describe the way Crowley’s skin felt beneath his fingers? Aziraphale was grateful he was not an author because he thought he could probably spend his entire life trying to describe this single kiss and still fall short of the real thing.

When they finally parted both were panting and Crowley’s hair was decidedly mussed. He managed a grin which Aziraphale returned.

“Come over tomorrow?” Crowley asked, still half-breathless.

“Of course, my dear.”

Aziraphale allowed himself a final peck and then made his way to the gate that led from the back garden out to the street. It opened silently, swinging open on well-oiled hinges, and he slipped out into the twilight. Just before he pulled the gate closed he looked back towards Crowley’s shed. The other man was still standing where Aziraphale had left him, though he’d turned to look into his room. He was curled in around himself, arms once more wrapped around his torso, and the light from the greenhouse shone off the vaseline on his new tattoo.

Aziraphale loved him more than he’d ever loved anyone or anything else and it took every scrap of stubbornness he had to close the gate and pull out his phone to summon a ride.

He spent the entire ride home telling himself that Crowley would be fine, that there was no reason at all to worry, that he was being ridiculous because the other man needed alone time after so many upsets in such a short period. He managed to believe himself for all of ten seconds each time before some new thought occurred.

What if Eve was upset that they’d buried Junior without her? What if Professor Haistwell came over? What if Professor Darrington did? What if it was before Eve got home?

He got out of the car and forced those thoughts away. The shop was still open and he needed a distraction. Cake. This was a day that deserved cake.

Contrary to every other time he’d been in the shop recently, Anathema was not working. Aziraphale realized as he picked up a slice of both his and Crowley’s favorites, that while cake was certainly a good thing, he’d actually wanted Anathema’s advice. Somehow, quite without him noticing, he’d begun to think of the terrifying woman as a friend and confidant.

Vaguely, he thought that that should have been a more upsetting realization because she really was overwhelming, but he had a shortage of friends who weren’t also classmates and didn’t think he could really stand to be picky. Plus, she gave good advice.

He took the cakes to the till and paid. Then, he made his way up to his flat and put them in the fridge to keep until later. He was just putting the kettle on when he spotted the open first aid kit on the coffee table through the doorway and all the worries rushed back over him.

Crowley hadn’t wanted to talk about how he was injured, but what if whatever had happened wasn’t over? Aziraphale had assumed he was mugged and embarrassed about it, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if the person came back?

The kettle’s switch clicked, indicating it was done boiling. Aziraphale pulled down the variety box of tea and selected one at random. He poured the water over the bag and immediately the scent of chamomile filled the room. He breathed deeply trying to take some comfort in the familiar ritual.

When the tea was steeped he pulled the bag from the water and pressed it between the side of the cup and a spoon before tossing it in the bin. Then, he stirred in a half teaspoon of honey and lifted the cup to his face. The steam curled around him, filling the room until all he could smell was chamomile and ginger and wildflower honey.

What if Crowley needed him?

He set the cup down on the counter with a clatter and then cursed as the tea splashed across his hand.

What _if_ Crowley needed him? Where would he be? Here? Drinking tea and eating cake?

That was intolerable. He might be an overly clingy fool, but Aziraphale could not shake the feeling that he wasn’t where he was meant to be.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Crowley. It rang four times before he heard Crowley’s voice asking why the devil he was _calling_ , didn't he know what year it was?

“Crowley, I do apologize, I know we just parted, it’s just I have a terrible feeling and I wa– needed to hear your voice.” He paused and swallowed. “I’m being ridiculous. Please disregard this message. I hope you sleep well.”

Aziraphale threw his phone down on the counter in disgust at his inability to let things go.

He managed two entire sips of the tea before he snarled and snatched the phone back up, shoving it in his pocket even as he grabbed his keys and made for the door. The trip back across London was a blur. Having given in to his anxieties, they were all he could think of, each possibility worse than the last.

Just around the corner from the garden center, the car pulled to a stop.

“We’re not there yet.” Aziraphale peered out into the dark, trying to discern why they might not be moving. There was no traffic this time of night.

The driver shrugged and pointed out the window. There, illuminated by the headlamps was a temporary roadblock.

“Must be something happening,” the driver said. “We can try to go around, if you’d like?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, no,” he muttered, pulling out his wallet before he remembered that the payment had occurred in the application on his phone. “I can walk from here.”

He clambered from the car and was immediately assaulted by the acrid tang of smoke.

“Ugh! Close the door, mate!” The driver called after him. Aziraphale slammed the door behind himself. He could hear sirens now, and, as he broke into a run, people were yelling. Crackling. A roar. More yelling.

He skidded around the corner and staggered to a stop, feeling as if someone had reached into his chest and crushed his heart and lungs to nothing more than pulp.

Ahead of him, surrounded by firemen and flashing lights, the garden center burned.

 _Where_ was _Crowley?!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale arrive at the garden center. The shop is closed and the upstairs lights are off, so they assume Eve is not there (as it's too early for her to be asleep). Crowley finds a spot beneath the tree in the middle of the garden and digs a hole while Azirpahale fetches the box with Junior's body. They bury him and Crowley says a few words. [return to text]


	20. Of Polluted Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: we upped the rating in deference to the last few chapters. <3
> 
> Chapter Warnings: Pets in peril (they’re fine, if annoyed). Fire (obviously) and burns (not graphically described), description of suffocation/choking on smoke, a brief, non-explicit mention of vomiting, general injury (some minor cuts but also some blood), police misconduct, and Crowley's general inability to think of himself as something of value (he spirals at least twice in this, one of which includes references to Junior). Implication of the loss of a child/children. 
> 
> We did not link any skips in this chapter, as we did not think there were any good places for it. If you think something needs to be skippable please let us know in the comments and we're happy to do so and provide a summary. Take care of yourselves. We promise that this is the low point (and also the end of Crowley’s no-good-very-bad week). It’s time for healing from here on out.

A shuffling outside the shed—on the side of his kitchenette where the fruit trees were—woke Crowley from a dead sleep. The glugging sound of sloshing water in a can made him blink blearily and try to check the time. His phone was bright underneath his blanket, which was a little stuffy to breathe through but filtered out most of the light, and he squinted.

"Eve?" Crowley called out. He waited a couple of seconds and didn’t hear anything, so he figured that she'd taken up a place at the door. Letting him have his own space and such. Sometimes it seemed like she was the only one who _got it_ , the needing space, needing something that was _his_ that couldn't be burst in on. He frowned, thinking of how Eve had told Aziraphale to wake him just over two weeks ago. He wondered… surely she didn’t think it was only her he needed an escape from?

"Eve," he said again, a little louder and also a little smaller somehow, a tinier voice to hide the bigger feelings. Maybe if he didn't feel so much it'd be easier to speak, but Crowley had never _not_ felt too much. "I'm fine, yanno. 'S fine. 'Ziraphale found me an', look, 'm sorry I didn't text back but I _couldn't_ and I– I know we need'ta talk, you an' me, and I gotta– I gotta tell you some stuff but… 'sss a whole _lotta_ stuff 'n I just. I hope you're not gonna be mad at me. So, later, I guess. I'll talk to ya when 'm awake."

With that, he slipped back into sleep, not even bothering to pull the blanket from his head, the very last rays of sun through the big window was just a bit too bright even filtered through all the greenery.

A little while later, Crowley startled awake. His heart pounded and he jerked himself nearly off the bed, as a shot of adrenaline so strong he felt ready to run miles rushed through his system. His whole body trembled, which he supposed probably should hurt his chest but he couldn't quite feel it through the haze. It was hot out, so he pushed the blankets off and sniffed at the air, very slowly waking up from his impromptu nap after being dropped off… he checked his phone, less than forty-five minutes ago.

He took as deep a breath as he could manage, trying to calm his racing heart. Then, he took another. It– it smelled like smoke? Crowley frowned, grabbing his sunglasses from where they were hooked over a tendril of ivy and shoving them onto his head. He swung his feet over the side of the low bed and padded over to the door where he froze, staring uncomprehendingly at the back of the garden center. Something was… wrong. He took a few steps forward and realized there was a massive amount of heat coming from the garden center. They had a heater, but even if Eve had forgotten and left it on, it shouldn’t feel anything like this.

Crowley walked towards the back door, eyes widening when he spotted the thin shadows that danced out from underneath it. Dread welled up in his stomach as the smell of smoke grew stronger, now joined by the thick smell of burnt organic matter and plaster. Inside he could hear a sudden crash of something that sounded like glass shattering and falling to pieces. It snapped him from his daze and the adrenaline surged again before he had a chance to remember he was barefoot and fresh from an unanticipated nap and that he ought to be aching still.

He stumbled over something in the yard, just a few feet from his own shed, and bent down to find his wallet. The haziness in his head wasn't lending itself well to connections, but instinctively stuffed it into his back pocket. Looking up, horror slowly dawned on him as the sounds from inside and the shifting light from underneath the door finally, _finally_ slotted into place.

The garden center was burning.

The adrenaline in his system shot through his heart and the cortisol woke him more effectively than a cold bucket of water, both responses he was intimately familiar with, like being stuck in a fight he wasn’t allowed to run away from. He fumbled over his own feet as he reared back into the side of his shed. There was a bucket of water, not enough to do anything, but he shucked his vest quickly with an efficiency that surprised him. Shouldn't he be panicking? Shouldn't he shut down just like all the other times? But no, he didn't know where Eve was, he didn't know if she was safe, so he just had to… embrace this knife-edge clarity for however long he had it and get on with it.

As soon as the vest was soaked, Crowley wrapped it around his nose and mouth as a sort of barrier. He kept a ratty old denim shirt hung on a peg for when he had to work with the roses. He scooped it up and dunked it in the water as well before slipping it on, leaving the front unbuttoned in his rush. Heat rose and what if Eve was upstairs? He took a single step forward before pausing and spinning back to grab the bucket and dump the water over all the rest of him, just in case. A single bucket wouldn't do much against the fire, but maybe it would afford him a few more minutes. Just in case.

Something inside collapsed and Crowley could swear he heard the building groan, even if there isn't anything showing on the outside just yet, not from back here anyway. He hoped someone had already called 999, but his phone was on his mattress and that was just too far away, he had already wasted too much time, too much of a _fucking_ coward to run in right away to find Eve.

"Eve! _Eve!_ " Crowley screamed the moment he stepped foot inside. He hissed at the ambient heat of the wood under his feet, but pressed forward anyway. It'd be fine, he was fine, there was no time to go get shoes, not all the way back in his shed.

It would be fine.

* * *

For all the time he’d spent avoiding churches, Crowley did know one thing. Hell was hot and painful and was filled to the brim with the _screaming and gnashing of teeth_ of sinners. He supposed he counted as a sinner as he ground his teeth, attempting to grab hold of his cries and twist them from wordless, animal fear into Eve's name. The heat of the flames licked around him and bit at his skin until he felt raw and dried up like he'd sat in the sun for days.

 _Nice to get a preview,_ Crowley thought nonsensically, hissing when he stepped too close to a spot where the tiles or floorboard had invisibly heated up. He danced around all the hidden mines in the floor on bare feet. _Worst day at the beach yet_ , the second thought followed quickly after.

"Eve!" Crowley screamed once more, his throat raw even through the quickly drying shirt wrapped around his neck, which only seemed to make his breathing harder the longer it stayed there, choking him, suffocating him in the thick, oppressive heat. "Damnit! Where the _hell_ are you?!" The tapestry with the brightly colored tree covering the stairwell entrance up to Eve's flat was engulfed and without a second thought, he tore it down and threw it to the ground before continuing up.

The tree had burnt up and there were embers on the stairs and Crowley couldn't even cry for how hot it was the further up he climbed. His feet burned and his heart burned too inside his chest, clenching down until he felt half-strangled with it. The shirt wrapped around his face had entirely dried out by now and was only getting in the way, so he tore it off with a wordless shout. Something shivered under his feet as he stepped up onto the first floor, but he did his best not to think about it.

As quickly as he could, he scoured every room looking for Eve, calling her name as loudly as he dared. Some animal instinct in him said he had to keep hidden on top of staying away from the flames and smoke. His feet hurt, like a bad sunburn now, but he kept going. Because if he didn't, if he stopped for even a moment, then he'd think about what was happening around him.

It wasn’t until he'd checked every single room and was standing in the middle of Eve’s empty bedroom that he realized he was chanting under his breath, "Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, twenty-eight, twenty-nine–"

There was nowhere else to look, this was the end of the circuit, Eve wasn't home.

She was safe.

 _Thank god_.

The relief was so powerful that Crowley stumbled, falling to his knees and shaking violently. For a split second, it felt like there was a cool breeze across his shoulders, but it was quickly engulfed in the raging heat that boiled up from below. Soon, Crowley forgot what it was like to not be so hot he’d long since ceased sweating, unable to even blink smoothly anymore. There was a certain sort of nirvana in it, the way the entire world seemed to turn small and still enough to fit in the room, how the faint crackling from below felt very far away even as it spread into other rooms to eat at the curtains and floorboards.

For the space of three breaths, all was still, and then even as he watched, tiny licks of flame began sprouting along the walls, creeping and curling until they found Eve’s bed and set the quilt ablaze. Eve had once told him that she and her grandmother made that quilt together. She’d slept under it every night since moving away from home. And then, all at once, the adrenaline rushed back into his system and he was _so tired_ but couldn't stop, he wouldn't ever be able to stop because–

Crowley sobbed, his chest catching with every aborted inhale as his ribs hurt even through the hormones that flooded his system as his body fought to keep him alive as best it could manage. Except, he was a fuck up, he was stuck here and couldn't even manage the most basic of human tasks, couldn't even manage to keep his shit together and _survive_ , how amazingly, bloody _useless_.

The wallet in his pocket was hot and bulky against his leg as he tried to draw his limbs back into some semblance of order. The wallet. Things clicked into place. He hadn't had his wallet yesterday or the day before, it was missing. He'd dropped it somewhere.

Except he'd had it back when he was supposed to drive Ligur and his cousin to that machine yard or whatever it was because he'd always had it in his pocket when he drove, but then–

Oh.

The fight. It dropped, had to have, or maybe when he dove into the car after pulling Ligur away, who knew.

This was… this was his fault.

He'd as good as set the fire then, fucked up bad enough that those bastards decided he wasn't worth the trouble or the hush money.

The worst part was that it tracked. He'd finally made a mistake too stupid to let him live for and now Eve would hate him 'cause he broke the _one fucking rule_ she had, the one _fucking_ thing she'd _ever_ asked of him and told him not to do and he did it and even if he made it through this she'd hate him and throw him out and she’d be right to do it and–

The count started up again, over and over. He could only count as long as he could breathe, except he couldn't breathe well so he had to _start over every time_ one, two, three, four, five– _one, two, three four– onetwothreefourfivesixonetwothree–_

He pushed himself back away from the center of the room with his feet until his shoulders hit Eve's dresser. The things atop it rattled, sending a book tumbling down to his lap with a thud and a sharp corner landing on his hip. He hissed in pain but it brought him back to himself before he could fully go adrift in the midst of an inferno. It was… _oh_.

Eve's photo album. With her husband Adam and their sons, Kay and Abe. Crowley hadn't ever met them, and Eve didn't talk about them much, but she'd said Abe loved the stars just like Crowley and Kay was a prickly as a cat in the rain and Adam had this way about him that just made you want to smile, even if you didn't know what there was to joke about.

And Crowley _knew_ that they were the single most important people in the universe to Eve, even if they were gone now. So, if Crowley could do _one thing_ to make up for ruining fucking everything, he'd need to get them back to her. Save this so she didn't lose them completely.

The fish, the fucking kraken-monster goldfish, those were from Kay and Abe, too. They were terrible creatures and useless and pretty and he had to save them too, otherwise Eve would be sad about it. And even if she sent him away, cause this was quite literally trouble directly on and inside her doorstep, then at least she wouldn't be _sad_.

Crowley didn’t think he could stand for Eve to be sad.

He hoped that Aziraphale wouldn't be disappointed with his being washed up and jobless and homeless after this. He hadn't ever had another job before, he wasn't sure how one was meant to look for them, to be perfectly honest. He'd saved a bit, but that should go to Eve, to make up for the accident where he could. Even if it wasn't worth much. It was everything he had and it was hers by right.

The fish, the fish, the fish!

Crowley shoved the photo album into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back to make sure he didn't lose it while keeping his hands free and tore into the kitchen, ripping open cupboards looking for the biggest bowl he could find. It was hot and it hurt to touch at first but he didn't know if that's just because his fingers felt raw and sunburnt or if it was actually hot and he tried to run it under water; but the pipes weren't working anymore, not really, and what water got through them was warm. It hurt his fingers, but not as bad as the glass, so he let it run hoping it might do some good, and scurried over to the massive tank with the two monstrosities.

He ripped up some of the greenery, it was fine it only had to last long enough to get them to a new tank, they'd be fine, the water plants would give them some extra oxygen. He hoped, an extra day, or something. Goldfish lived like five years in small bowls or something, they'd be fine for a week or however long, right? Oh, he hoped.

They had to be fine.

The fish weren't overly hard to catch, they had no reason to be frightened of the person who fed them sometimes and _fuck_ , ok, grab some food and chuck it in the bowl with them, overfed maybe but who knows how soon they'd eat again, they ate on a schedule but fucking it up once would be fine right? He cursed under his breath and blessed too for good measure, hoping that whatever might be listening would make it so there wasn't any _more_ reason for Eve to hate him once this was all over.

He scooped them into the massive bowl and filled it with water as best he could up to the brim and shoved in a handful of greenery and their roots which muddied the water just a little, but he wasn't sure if he could worry about that too right now. He'd worry later, it would be fine, he'd… he'd tell Eve what he'd done and she'd find them and he'd leave her everything she asked for in his– in the shed and move on where he had to.

Crowley ran the bowl with Finwick and Cheeto down the stairs and out to the tiny almost-orchard of fruit trees outside, it was humid and warm out here but it wasn't on fire, shouldn't catch even if some of the glass was broken and the fire attempted to fan out from the garden center and the home above it. The trees were far enough away and Junior was right in the middle of them, close to his shed. Just feet away from his big window underneath an apple tree. Crowley placed the sloshing bowl with stressed fish at the base of the tree. Then, he paused to catch his breath. There was something about the apple tree that made klaxons sound in his head.

Something… something about… about Junior, that he couldn't remember. Did the apples make him think of the snake? Must be 'cause of that church stained glass or something. The way it had looked with the sun behind it was a little like it was on fire, hadn’t it?

He was still the sort of fuzzy he’d felt just before he'd gone inside the first time, when things didn't feel like they were connecting properly in his head and it had taken him a while to understand that the garden center was on fire and just what that actually meant.

Then, another realization and his heart fell out of his chest to land somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. Junior, oh _fuck_ he forgot Junior.

Crowley dropped the photobook out of his waistband next to the bowl of fish with nary another thought. He ran back into the building, swearing loudly, his breath barely a wheeze, the empty place where his heart had been filled with nothing but thorned ivy as he crashed through the garden center. It was well and truly on fire at this point; pots shattered under his hands and he didn't bother to step around the ceramic shards. He cried without tears again feeling like his world had been flipped on its head as he called for Junior. But Junior wouldn't respond—he couldn't, he was a snake, he was scared and didn't know what fire was except that it was bad, probably, and he was better than Crowley so please, god, just let him be alright.

The last place to check was a small terrarium where Crowley sometimes fed him slugs. The snake normally had free rein of the garden center, but the fire had claimed all his usual places, and no nooks and crannies existed anymore for him to hide in, so Crowley grabbed at the glass in a last-ditch effort to find his friend. But when he touched it, it broke underneath his hands the same way the pots had when he'd shoved them to the floor in distress. Except all this took was a touch, and it hurt his hands and the shards were sharper than he thought they could be and he stifled a scream in his raw, aching throat.

Blood ran down his fingers and the backs of his hands and for some reason he was compelled to bring them up to cradle under his chin in the hollow of his throat, to curl in close around himself, as small as he could be. His fingertips brushed against a bump over his skin. The healing tattoo thing, the saniderm, or whatever it was called. Right.

Right.

Junior was. Junior was.

Crowley slumped over himself, still standing but only just barely, and while he hadn't any more tears to cry, it sure felt like he ought to with how his shoulders shook. And he'd never felt so terrible as he did when he realized he was _glad_ that Junior had died three days prior, because at least it hadn't been the fucking fires of hell that'd done it.

"My best friend, you bastards," he choked softly to himself, and thumbed along the barrier over his new tattoo and somehow the pain of remembrance he'd chosen for himself was soothing instead of adding to the way his feet hurt and his hands hurt and the rest of his skin felt too tight for the whole of his body to fit in.

A crack near his head like a gunshot shattered the moment and he hopped out of the way of a hunk of drywall from the ceiling as it fell, crumbling to dust along the way, covering him in even more filth than he already was. He breathed, badly but he'd done it, and pulled himself back into his body so he wouldn't go floating off, and started back upstairs again. There was more Eve would need.

He'd be fine. But Eve wouldn't.

* * *

There were a great many moments in his life that kept Aziraphale awake at night. He was already a poor sleeper, his mind racing away from him and the certainty that he’d not accomplished enough dogging his steps every moment, but little kept him awake as surely as memories of all the moments he wished had gone differently over the years. All the times he could have made a better decision or said something more clever on a constant loop in his mind.

This would never be one of those moments. Had he thought about it at all, Aziraphale would have known there was nothing else he could do, no other decision or action he might have taken, save _go to Crowley._

It was all-consuming, that drive.

Aziraphale ran as fast as he could down the street, the thin soles of his loafers slapping against the pavement with every step. Distantly, he could hear the firefighters calling back and forth, scrambling about with the organized chaos only first responders seemed to understand. Nothing they said made any sense to Aziraphale. All he knew was the way the street was bright enough for him to see the sweat on their faces even from halfway down the street. They shone with the flashing lights, bright blue sparks chased away by the orange and red and the sound of wood bending and snapping and oh _god–_

He’d left Crowley. He’d gone home.

He wasn’t here.

Aziraphale’s steps were suddenly louder, different, and when he glanced down he saw water beginning to run in rivulets across the pavement. It steamed in the cool night air. Even as he approached the fire seemed to grow. The firefighters were louder now, yelling back and forth about ‘mitigation’ and ‘triage’. The front door bowed outward and then collapsed in a riot of sparks, followed by a plume of fire and smoke from inside.

When it cleared, Aziraphale could see that the main shop area was still mostly whole, though the walls crawled with what looked like living flames. He ducked around two police officers and darted for the door, sure that if he took the time to run around to the back, it would be too late. He could make it, he could run through the building and out the other side. He could.

He had to.

Crowley wasn’t here, the fire cast a reddish light over the entire tableau but there was not a redhead to be seen.

He was less than a yard away when two strong arms wrapped around his chest and yanked him backward. The sudden shift in momentum caused him to trip over his own feet, sending both himself and the person at his back tumbling to the ground. He landed half-atop them and stayed there, dazed, for a few moments. Then, there was the sound of something else in the garden center collapsing.

Aziraphale tried to pull away. “Crowley!” he shouted, but the fire was so loud it overwhelmed his meager voice.

The arms were still around him.

Aziraphale fought, clawing at them, trying to slip his fingers between them and himself so he had the leverage to yank them away. They only held tighter. He was having trouble breathing now and didn’t know if it was the certainty that Crowley needed him, the smoke, or the compression of his ribs.

“Crowley!” He screamed once more, then, “Let me _go_!” He tries to lunge up to his feet to no avail.

Something flickered in the corner of his vision as he tried to reach around his own side to jab at the person holding him. If he could just startle–

“Hey! Hey, kid, calm down!”

Suddenly, there was a man in front of him. Young and familiar, though the deep crease in the middle of his brow seemed wrong somehow. He looked worried.

“You can’t go charging off in there,” the man said. He glanced back over his shoulder to where the firefighters were using their axes to clear debris away and leave a safe path for their comrades. “They’ve got this sorted.”

Aziraphale collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut. After a moment, the officer in front of him nodded to the person holding him and they released Aziraphale. He did not rise from the ground. The second person circled him and as soon as Aziraphale saw his irritated expression it clicked. The officers from the diner, the ones who knew Crowley and somehow still thought he was involved in something dangerous.

He opened his mouth to tell them off, but the elder (Bill, he remembered, and the younger was Suraj, he was sure he'd heard their last names but the memory was locked away behind his panic) beat him to it.

“What happened here?” Bill crossed his arms over his chest. “And don’t think I won’t be considering writing this,” he gestured to a tear in his right sleeve, “up. You can expect a notice in the–”

“Oh for the love of– Bill leave it,” Suraj rolled his eyes. “He didn’t mean to and you know it.”

Bill spat on the ground. “Don’t even know why we’re here,” he muttered. Suraj sighed.

“It’s our job,” he said, “Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten–”

“Has Crowley come out?” Aziraphale asked, more than a little desperate. All he could taste now was char and blood—he must have bitten his tongue when he fell. “He might have used the back gate?”

Suraj and Bill exchanged a look and the fragile hope that had been building in Aziraphale’s chest shattered.

“Oh dear,” he managed to say, though it came out very small.

“I’ll go check in with the firefighters,” Suraj said with a very clearly fake smile. He nodded to Aziraphale and strode away.

“Better to just let the place burn,” Bill muttered as soon as he was out of earshot. “Serve the little gangbanger right if he was–”

Later, Aziraphale would regret having no memory of punching Bill. But, in the moment it felt better than he thought anything save Crowley’s kiss ever had. He jolted to his feet, using the motion to fuel the forward momentum of his arm, following through just like Michael had taught him when he was small. His knuckles connected with Bill’s cheek in a meaty thunk. Spit and blood sprayed in an arc as Bill’s head twisted to the side. His body followed soon after and carried him around a half spin and to the pavement once more.

For half a heartbeat Aziraphale stood there, panting and furious beyond measure, then it dawned on him that he was no longer restrained. All thought of how very badly he’d like to follow his punch up with a good kick fled as he spun on his heel and bolted for the door. A few firefighters tried to grab him as he passed, but their hands were full of the hose and their shouts were lost to the chaos around them.

The heat hit him first, a solid wall of force that nearly sent him to his knees as soon as he skidded to a stop in the middle of the shop. He gasped, shocked by how it all seemed to press in around him, and then began to cough as the smoke irritated his throat. When he finally managed to catch his breath a little, to open his eyes past the heat that wanted to bake them to nothing more than dust, the roar of noise was nearly overwhelming. How had he not realized before?

The flames moved across the walls like living things, thin serpents with flickering tongues and thick bands like waves of light through grain, and they were all screaming, shouting, shrieking even as the wood groaned and popped. It felt like even the light was more noise than anything else.

Aziraphale gathered the smoking scraps of his composure and wet his lips, taking as deep a breath as he could manage and calling for Crowley once more.

“Crowley!”

The only answer he received was a window at the back of the shop shattering outward. A great gush of wind ripped past him, a swirl of ash and fire, and Aziraphale knew he was crying but he couldn’t feel anything but the press of noise and heat. There was nothing for it but to continue through.

He took a few steps forward, feeling strangely shaky, before something made him pause.

“Crowley?!” Aziraphale tried again. His voice cracked. He made to move towards the back door once more, but again something stopped him. This time he heard it, a noise upstairs, not a voice or anything like that, but something at the edge of his hearing, something that didn’t _fit_ everything else around him.

He looked at the door and the safety beyond. Crowley was very likely out there, probably standing with Eve as far away as possible and safe as could be. There was no reason at all to believe he was in here.

Aziraphale turned towards the stairs.

There was no reason at all to think that Crowley was upstairs, but suddenly Aziraphale knew it was true with every fiber of his being.

The wood under his feet was brittle; it bowed and protested and just near the top one step gave way entirely, pitching him forward. He hit the ground with a thump but did not linger. The smoke was far thicker up here and he knew there was very little time before it would be impossible to escape without injury.

He’d barely made it three steps, just far enough to see around the corner of the kitchen into the hall that led to the bedrooms, when he spotted Crowley.

The other man was sobbing, great heaving things that could barely escape him without being punctuated by rasping, gasping coughs. His hands were locked around the wood of a doorframe, fingers curled into talons as he leaned back, yanking semi-frantically at it.

Aziraphale had called for Crowley so many times, and yet when he opened his mouth nothing escaped.

It felt as if the fire had burned away everything but this moment. He could no longer hear the firefighters or see the flashing lights, even the roar of the flames was quieter up here, though the heat was still oppressive.

Aziraphale staggered a few steps closer to Crowley. The other man didn’t seem to have noticed him.

“Gotta get it,” Crowley muttered through dry, heaving breaths that sounded like sobbing though there weren't any tears to go with it, “Can’t leave.”

Aziraphale grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, away from the doorframe. It creaked and splintered with the added force but did not come away from the wall. Crowley still didn’t acknowledge him. A terrible noise escaped him, halfway between a whine and another sob, as he twisted away and grabbed for the frame again.

“Nononononono.” It fell from Crowley’s lips in a continuous stream. Aziraphale watched as his face twisted into an awful grimace of pain when he dug his fingertips back into the crevices in the wood. A flash of bright red caught Aziraphale’s eye. He reached out, feeling suddenly as if everything had fallen away. There was only Crowley and the doorframe and Aziraphale and he needed–

It was blood.

Crowley’s hands were crisscrossed with gashes, some deep enough to still weep blood. What skin remained uncovered was tight and shining, clearly burnt though Aziraphale had no idea how badly.

“Oh, my love,” he tried to say, but there was no moisture left in him and he could only mouth it, cracked lips catching against each other as he did so.

“Gotta get it,” Crowley responded without looking away from his task. “I can’t– Eve needs– My–”

Aziraphale took Crowley’s left wrist and gently tugged, slowly pulling him away from the wall once more. Crowley was far too weak to resist, no matter how he tried to hold on. As soon as he was clear, Aziraphale used his free hand to rip the doorframe away from the wall.

Crowley made a small, broken noise deep in his throat as Aziraphale handed him the scrap of wood. He had no idea _why_ it was so important to Crowley, but he’d be damned if he didn’t do whatever it took to get Crowley out of here.

He was just eyeing the way Crowley clutched it tight to his chest, heedless of the damage to his hands, and trying to decide how to get him up and moving when the chance to dither was taken from them. The heat upstairs had been growing steadily more intense and it seemed between one blink and the next the small licks of fire on the walls had spread to brilliant sheets.

Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s shoulder and yanked him to his feet, keeping them both in a half-crouch as he stumbled towards the steps. The furniture in the living room was entirely engulfed by the time they passed. Aziraphale tried to keep himself between the inferno and Crowley, but it was spreading so rapidly through the upstairs that there was little he could do, save keeping them both moving towards the stairs.

The ground floor looked worse than when Aziraphale had left but they couldn’t remain up here. It was becoming difficult to breathe through the heat, to say nothing of the smoke. Just as they started down the stairs, Aziraphale caught sight of the smoke at the ceiling igniting. He didn’t remember what it was called, but fire safety lessons when he was a kid came flooding back.

That was bad.

They needed to move.

_Now._

Without regard for the shaking pace Crowley had been setting, Aziraphale grabbed his shoulder and all but threw them down the stairs. The last few steps collapsed in a shower of flames and sparks as they tumbled past.

Aziraphale cried out in pain and then in shock as two huge figures appeared over them. They were shouting, Aziraphale thought, but he couldn’t hear anything at all. His eyes were locked on the first floor, waiting for–

A flash of brilliant red and then white and another wall of heat, somehow more intense than any that had come before. The firefighters burst into motion, heavy hands and shoulders and they were pulling Aziraphale away from Crowley. He wanted to struggle but he had nothing left with which to do so and could only watch as Crowley was treated to the same rough care.

The cool night air was almost painful when they burst from the garden center.

Aziraphale tried to take a breath, suddenly feeling as if he’d not had full lungs in weeks, months, perhaps ever. It caught in his throat, the chill and the smoke combining to send him to his knees, coughing so violently he retched.

Through the spasms he tried to look for Crowley. The other fireman had had him, right? He was safe?

Where was–

There!

Crowley lay curled on the ground, his eyes closed and his own breathing hardly any more steady that Aziraphale’s. His clothing was singed and patchy, and his– Oh good lord, he was barefoot. Aziraphale hadn’t noticed inside. The bottoms of Crowley’s feet were black with soot but clearly badly burned. Aziraphale forced himself to his hands and knees, crawling across the pavement until he reached Crowley’s side.

“Cro–” He broke off to cough, turning his head and spitting a wad of black phlegm on to the ground. “Crowley,” he tried again, resting one shaking hand on Crowley’s cheek. “Crowley, pl–please. I need you to–” He wasn’t even sure what he was asking, what he needed, just that Crowley wasn’t moving and he couldn’t handle that. There were people gathering around them now, but Aziraphale paid them no mind. The only person, the only thing in the world that mattered just then was Crowley. He leaned in close, teetering a bit before he caught his balance again, “Crowley, love, please.”

“–zirfl?”

Crowley’s eyes were slits, but he was awake and looking at Aziraphale. “Why’re y–” A cough ripped from him, harsher sounding than Aziraphale’s own had been. Aziraphale waited for it to pass, but it didn’t seem to be lessening or fading. Crowley coughed and before he’d even stopped it seemed another was tearing its way from him, and then another, and another, and another and soon Crowley’s right hand had abandoned the wood to fumble for Aziraphale. His eyes were squeezed tightly in pain and his entire body trembled.

Crowley was terrified and Aziraphale was powerless.

“It’s okay.” Aziraphale looked up and blinked, startled to realize that quite without him noticing they’d collected a crowd. The person who’d spoken was a paramedic with such a serene expression on her face that Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel a little soothed. “Here,” she held out a plastic face mask, reaching to start securing it to his face. He pulled back at first, but as soon as he saw two others helping Crowley, he relented.

“Little shit punched me.” Aziraphale glanced up to see Bill and Suraj standing behind the paramedics. Bill was sporting a bloody nose and Suraj looked exhausted. Aziraphale squinted and spotted the name tag the junior officer wore; PC Nayar. 

“Yeah,” the younger man said. “The way you tell it, I might’ve done more than that.”

Bill’s mouth snapped closed. Aziraphale watched in silence as the paramedics wheeled over a gurney and lifted Crowley onto it. In the shuffle, the wood slipped from Crowley’s grip. Weakly, he tried to sit up, to bat the paramedic’s hands away. Aziraphale leaned forward and picked it up.

“I’ve got it, Crowley,” he said as loudly as he could manage past the mask. Crowley’s wild eyes found him, skittering down his body until they landed on his hands. He stared for a few awful moments before collapsing back against the gurney.

“We’re not taking him anywhere yet,” the one still sitting next to Aziraphale told him. “They’re just going to check him over, don’t worry. I’ll stay here with you.”

Aziraphale nodded, eyes never straying from Crowley’s retreating form. Crowley had twisted back around so he could once again curl up on his side. He still held his hands pressed to his chest as if he held the wood there.

“Here.” Aziraphale nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected voice. PC Nayar had approached, leaving Bill behind to glower at them both. The officer held out a water bottle to Aziraphale. “Oh, actually, can he have this?” he asked the paramedic.

She nodded and Aziraphale took it. His hands shook violently as he twisted the top and lifted it to his face. The opening hit the mask he’d already forgotten he was wearing. The paramedic smiled at him and helped to lower it so he could take a few massive gulps of water. He wasn’t sure he’d ever tasted anything so wonderful. After far less than he wanted, she tapped the bottom of the bottle and tilted it away from his mouth, raising the mask back up.

“You don’t want too much at once,” she said, “Not until we get you checked over and get that cough under control.”

He grimaced and nodded. Retching on an empty stomach was bad enough. The paramedic reached around behind herself and picked up a blanket, shaking it out and allowing PC Nayar to take the opposite corner to wrap around Aziraphale’s shoulders. He’d not thought he would like the feeling, he’d been so overheated for so long, but he suddenly realized he couldn’t stop shivering. He adjusted the mask which caused the blanket to slip a bit. From the corner of his eye he could see PC Nayar shift, as if to fix it, before slipping his hand into his pocket and stepping away.

“Is Crowley–'' Aziraphale stuttered to a stop because across the scene, just barely lit by the flames, the Bentley had just pulled up. As he watched, Eve burst from the driver’s side almost before the car had even fully stopped, followed rapidly by Professor Haistwell. Eve beelined for Crowley, shoving her way past the firefighters and paramedics until she reached the open doors of the ambulance.

The officers bickered above him, though Aziraphale felt as if they’d been speaking another language up until that moment.

“–don’t care that he’s acting like a goddamned porcelain doll. We need to get his statement.”

“Right now? Bill, come on. Look at them both, they’ve been through hell.”

“And?”

“And you can bloody well wait until they’re not in shock to ask questions that you know won’t get answers anyway!”

Aziraphale stared at the scrap of wood cradled in his lap. He’d not really looked at it before. There was something… He peered closer. It was smudged by soot and slightly charred, but he could just barely make out little tick marks and an unfamiliar handwriting.

_Kay ————— 7 years old_

_Abe ————— 6 years old_

_Abe ————— 5 years old_

_Kay ————— 6 years old_

He looked up just in time to see one wall of the garden center finally give way, collapsing under its own weight. The enormity of what had just happened hit him, a tidal wave of grief for Crowley and Eve that he had no way of avoiding. There was no high ground, no safe boat he could fly to, no port in this storm.

Eve had lost everything. Crowley probably had as well, there was no way the little shed had survived. Aziraphale couldn’t even begin to imagine how that would feel.

He watched as Eve wrapped Crowley in a hug, her hand on the back of his head, tilting it to her neck. Even from so far away, Aziraphale could see the way Crowley melted into the embrace. Aziraphale stood. He held the blanket closed with one hand and gripped the wood tightly with the other.

“I need to…” he trailed off, gesturing vaguely towards Crowley. The paramedic nodded.

“Of course. I’ll follow you over and after you check on him, we’ll get you looked over.”

The journey probably took less than a minute, but it felt like years. He could see Crowley’s shoulders shaking, see Eve’s eyes shining.

He tried to find the words to say how sorry he was, how he wished it hadn’t happened, how he’d do anything he could to help. But, what came out was;

“Here, Crowley got this. I– I think it’s yours.”

Eve dragged her eyes back around from where she’d been into space.

“Aziraphale?” It was not Eve who’d spoken. Professor Haistwell appeared from the bustle. Aziraphale had forgotten ens was here. Things kept slipping away from him like that. “Oh, heavens.”

For perhaps the first time in his life, Aziraphale ignored the professor. He held the bit of wood out further. “Crowley pulled it off the door.” Eve let go of Crowley with one hand and took it. As soon as she saw the writing, she gasped, her other hand flying to her mouth.

“Oh,” she said and Aziraphale’s heart broke. He’d never heard Eve sound like that before, like he’d just found the one thing in the universe she didn’t know how to handle. She looked at Crowley, her eyes even brighter than before.

“Sorry,” Crowley rasped. He coughed a few times, though they sounded far less painful than they had before. “Tried to save more. Couldn’t.” He coughed again, and this time they caught in his throat, drawing one of the watching paramedics over. They fiddled with his mask and the leads attached to his chest and readjusted the cool packs wrapped around his hands and forearms.

“Aziraphale,” Professor Haistwell said again. He was closer now. “Sit down. You’re white as a sheet, son.” He lay gentle hands on Aziraphale’s elbow and shoulder, guiding him down to sit beside Crowley.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale murmured.

Crowley looked at him, twitching one hand as if to reach out before grimacing.

A second realization dawned on Aziraphale. Crowley could have died. He was hurting and he’d been alone in there and _he could have died._

“I love you,” he said, sure that there had never been a more urgent time to say it.

Crowley didn’t smile, his face was locked in a shell-shocked expression that didn’t seem to be going away any time soon. But, something around his eyes did soften. Aziraphale wrapped one arm around Crowley’s shoulder and pulled him closer, tilting him slightly until they fit together and there was no space at all left between them.

“Love you, too,” Crowley mumbled as soon as Aziraphale stopped moving.

Aziraphale closed his eyes. There were too many people, too many voices, too much still happening. He wanted to be alone with Crowley in their bed.

Without reopening his eyes he turned slightly and pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of Crowley’s head.

There was too much happening around them, but like this, with Crowley safe and pleased against his side and his eyes closed, Aziraphale could pretend for a moment that all was well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! We started a server if you'd like to talk about stuff there, scream about Math, pick our brains, and/or whatever else you might like (we're happy to give fic recommendations as well ;) )
> 
> Eventually, (once we're finished here) this will turn into the first book of a series of reincarnated soul mates, so if you'd like to keep up on that, get sneak peeks into our writing process and/or snippets as we write, come join us! 
> 
> Please visit us [here on Discord](https://discord.gg/YgKBkXP)!


	21. Of Fire-Fallow Fields

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've started the healing arc! You made it! Things are still a bit rough here, but we make up for it by (finally) giving you some answers! 
> 
> Chapter warnings: referenced child-death, dysfunctional parent-child relationships, interrogation by police, hospitals (non-graphic: referenced medical procedures, burns), unintentional misgendering (addressed in the text), throwing someone out as a scare tactic

It took everything Aziraphale had in him not to beg the EMTs to take him with them, not to grab at their hands and say the words that tumbled through him, falling over each other and crowding out anything else; _pleasepleaseohgoddon’ttakehimaway_. He clenched his fists at his sides and watched, heart-aching, as the EMTs locked the stretcher in place. Crowley was leaned back, Eve at his side. He’d half lifted up on one elbow, eye locked on Aziraphale’s and his lips parted slightly and, and, and then the doors were closing and Aziraphale could only watch.

“He’ll be alright.” Aziraphale couldn’t tear his eyes away from the brake lights as they lit and then slowly began to pull away. Professor Haistwell was a solid column of calm just behind his shoulder.

“Will he?”

The professor sighed. “Well, I assume so. They didn’t seem terribly rushed. But, it had been a rather… eventful week for the two of you.”

Aziraphale snorted wetly and realized for the first time that he was crying. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, patting at his chest where his handkerchief would normally be. It wasn’t there, he wasn’t wearing his usual clothes. That, on top of everything else just then, was apparently the straw the broke the camel’s back because a sudden sob burst from Aziraphale, startling him. He tried to control himself, but another followed, and then a third, and then Professor Haistwell’s hands were on his shoulders, guiding him to sit on the edge of the kerb. They continued to press gently downward until Aziraphale’s forehead rested on his bent knees. The position compressed his chest and the next sob came out choked, painful as it drew more air than he had room for from his smoke-clogged lungs.

“Sorry,” the words filtered through to him and he was startled to recognize the voice as his own, “I’m so sorry. Sorry. Oh.”

Professor Haistwell was seated at his side, ens’ hand pressed against the curve of Aziraphale’s back, slowly dragging across his shoulders in a gentle rhythm.

“Shh,” ens murmured. “No need to apologize, son. You’re alright. Shh.”

Another half-whimpered sob clawed its way from him. He curled tighter around himself. His knees hurt his forehead, his fingers ached where they were dug into his hair, tugging, yanking, maybe if he pulled hard enough he could make this feeling stop, maybe he could–

“Hey, none of that now.” One hand stayed on his back, an anchor to the real world, even as another wrapped around his left wrist and gently pulled Aziraphale’s fingers from his hair.

“Sorry, sorry.” Aziraphale could taste the salt on his lips. Salt and char and he’d never be able to eat shiozake again without thinking of the way Crowley’s eyes had shone as the ambulance doors closed. Not without remembering the char-salt-fire taste left in his mouth.

Slowly, the sobs peetered off to hitching breaths as Aziraphale’s inhale and exhale fell into alignment with the hand Professor Haistwell continued to rub across his shoulders.

“Good, that’s good, Azira,” Professor Haistwell said, voice still gentled and low. “It’s okay, you take the time you need and then we’ll go to the hospital and see your man and maybe Eve won’t kill me.”

Despite still feeling overly shaky and weak, Aziraphale laughed. “Why would she want to kill you, Professor?”

Haistwell’s hand stilled, just over his spine at the base of his neck. Crowley’s new tattoo crossed that spot, Aziraphale thought, he’d dreamed about kissing each star, about tracing the lines with his lips and tongue and whispering all the ways he loved Crowley into his flesh.

“Not sure really,” Haistwell said. Ens squeezed his neck once before standing and stretching. “It’s just that trying to kill me seems to be her response to stressful situations.”

“Oh.”

“You should have seen us in our last year of uni. I swear that woman ordered actual poison for my drink when I asked her how revising for her exams was going.”

“I’m not sure I believe you, Professor,” Aziraphale said and he managed to actually smile, grateful beyond words for Haistwell’s easy calm. He’d always appreciated it at tense moments in the semester, but now it was a godsend.

“Oh no, I wouldn’t lie about this, she’s a terror.” Ens sounded proud and Aziraphale thought it was probably even the truth. “Adam was, somehow, a calming influence.”

Aziraphale staggered to his feet, thoroughly distracted from his panicked thoughts. “Adam?”

“Her husband,” Haistwell said, mood a bit dampened. “I imagine there are quite a few of his pictures in the album Mr Crowley said he saved.”

The reminder ticked Aziraphale’s heartbeat up once more. Crowley. He needed to be with Crowley.

“We need to go!”

Haistwell smiled at him. “Of course. We can take the Bentley.”

The firefighters directed them around in a safe path to where the car had been parked. Aziraphale tried very hard not to flinch when the heat from the fire increased but knew he failed when Haistwell leaned close and said, “He’s not there. You’re both okay.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale murmured, but the taste of char had filled his mouth again.

When they reached the car Professor Haistwell opened the passenger door for Aziraphale and closed it carefully behind him before circling and sliding into the driver’s seat. Ens turned the keys in the ignition and placed ens’ hands on the steering wheel but made no further moves towards driving.

The sounds of the firefighters and the water and flames were oddly muffled. Aziraphale waited, perhaps ens was simply remembering the route to the hospital.

Finally, hesitantly, Aziraphale said, “uh, Professor. Your parking place on campus is always empty.”

Ens nodded, fingers tightening on the wheel. “It is.”

“And you told me you only have the spot to piss off some asshole in the next building over. You don’t have a car?”

“Nope.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being impertinent, but, do you know how to drive?”

“I don’t believe I do, no.”

Another few seconds of silence passed.

“Then, perhaps, we should–”

“Yes, of course.” They switched seats. Aziraphale took a moment to find the worn spots on the wheel where Crowley’s hands usually rested. He did not enjoy driving, in fact he had only discovered he liked being in cars at all when he began riding with Crowley. But, it was a necessary evil right now and he would just have to trust that Crowley’s car would see him through to her owner safely.

A few minutes into the drive Haistwell cleared ens’ throat and Aziraphale glanced over to see the bright shine of the street lamps glinting off the professor’s glasses as ens looked at Aziraphale.

“I cannot believe you were in a burning building,” ens said, very quietly. “Timid Azira Fell who was so flustered at our first meeting that he tripped trying to shake my hand and nearly destroyed a four-hundred-year-old tome was caught in a fire.”

Aziraphale huffed. He’d not been as timid as all that, though he was quite sure that the person he was a year ago never would have recognized him today.

“The rug in your office is a hazard,” he muttered, “And besides all that, I wasn’t in there to start with.” He leaned forward to read the street sign as they passed, the hospital was just up ahead if he remembered correctly.

“What?”

Just a few more streets. He could practically sense Crowley as he drew closer. “I mean, Crowley was in there,” he explained, sending the bentley a mental pat as she took the sharp corner smoothly. “I wasn't about to let him–” He broke off and wiped at his eyes, glancing over to see Professor Haistwell staring at him.

“Of course,” the professor said, very faintly sounding a little like he'd had the breath punched out of him.

The rest of the trip was silent.

* * *

Eve and Crowley were loaded into the ambulance—Crowley on the stretcher and Eve perched on the little bench at his head, leaned forward and around so her hand could cover his wrist. It seemed like things had calmed down somewhat, now that they were on the way to the A&E. She held his pulse under her fingers, her grip as gentle as she could manage, which was saying quite a bit considering how all-encompassingly _worried_ she’d been when they pulled up and saw the center in flames.

She looked at the fire and felt the heat of the flames and she’d prayed that Crowley was still with Aziraphale only to immediately call God a bitch for answering the prayer in the worst way possible.

 _No,_ she pushed those thoughts from her head, squeezing Crowley’s wrist to reassure herself he was still alive and breathing, _that’s not the worst way to be found together…_ The morbid thought lingered, the old fear circling her throat until she could barely breathe through it.

It was fine, it’d be fine, Crowley was alive and he was _fine_ and that was what mattered.

Crowley made a small noise, drawing her attention back to the present moment. His eyes, surrounded by an ash-darkened face, shone with unshed tears and it took everything in Eve's power not to try to wipe it all off. Only the fear of hurting him without knowing it kept her hand on his wrist and the other in her own lap, clutching at her skirt.

"I– I'm sorry." Crowley croaked. Eve winced; his voice sounded raw and painful, like he could only barely manage to force the words out.

"No, hun, there's nothin–" Eve did her best to keep her hand light, to not squeeze desperately, fearfully, at his wrist to reassure herself. But Crowley cut off her attempts to reassure either of them with words, a fresh sob rattling from his lungs like the echo of a rock dropped in a cave and startling her into silence.

"Eve, _Eve_ ," Crowley cried. The paramedics bustling around them did their best not to look while still keeping an eye on his vitals and charts. "Eve, he's _gone_. I meant to tell you, but it was so much, and you looked happy and I didn't want to fuck it up for you, but Junior's _dead_ an– and I buried him out back with the fish an' your photos an' I–" Crowley cut himself off this time with a another ragged sob.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I broke your rule…." The young man trailed off hoarsely into quiet weeping. Eve had thought her heart was already as twisted as it could be, but now it contorted still further around itself; her home was burning, her boy was inconsolable, that damned little snake was gone, and apparently so were Kay and Abe's fishes and whatever photos she had left of them…. It was- That was a lot to take in at once, especially when she also had to keep herself from pulling Crowley into the biggest, tightest hug she could manage. She’d read his ‘real’ mother the riot act not two days ago, she’d been so proud of herself for defending him, for making sure he’d never have to hurt like that again.

And now….

Eve sat beside Crowley, holding his wrist and counting his heartbeats, and scrambled for something, _anything,_ to say. Topic didn’t matter as long as it filled the silence. But everything felt so far away, even this morning felt distant, an hour ago was eons now. Everything had changed. But also nothing at all had; Crowley was still alive, her boys still weren't, and having their photos or their fish wasn't going to change any of that. Eve breathed in, slowly and carefully, and breathed out again.

Through his tears, Crowley was still talking, a murmur at first but slowly growing in pace and volume. She only caught the tail end of his increasingly frantic sounding monologue, "An' I'll go to Aziraphale or something, so you've got the room, so it's fine and you'll have the fish and there's room for all the plants or something outside they're bastards they probably deserve it, just chuck 'em out, they'll fend for themselves the fuckers and–"

"No, no, it's alright," Eve shushed him softly. She squeezed gently at Crowley's wrist, hoping the comfort she could try would work in any way might help, or at least it might let her boy know he wasn't all alone. She wasn't entirely sure what rule he was talking about though….

* * *

Crowley sighed heavily, laying back and squeezing his eyes tightly shut so no more tears could escape. How he had anything left in him to cry he didn't know, but here he was with Eve by his bedside and her hand a manacle on his wrist, holding him in place and dragging down his heart with dread.

She had to know, she had to have known, that's why she was so quiet. She'd known it was his fault and there were cops there and Crowley _knew_ they thought he'd have started that fire. And… he had no alibi. He was asleep, out back even, and had plenty of time to manage it. He wouldn't be too surprised if his license was missing from his wallet too, he hadn't bothered to check, but he just knew that it would be found somewhere it wasn't supposed to be, maybe another fire yesterday or the day before when he hadn’t answered their summons.

Sometimes it felt like his entire life was lived in thirty second increments, constantly ticking over from one to the next. Just then, he was too overwhelmed to even keep track of the numbers, they kept snagging and rushing ahead and it left him feeling even more off-kilter than he’d already been.

Crowley grimaced as he forced his breathing under control. The numbers looped in his head too fast for him to properly count until he got dizzy with it all. He wouldn't put it past Beelzebub. Hastur probably would’ve done it with a grin and a skip in his step, the bloody arsonist bastard. He loved setting shit on fire to watch it burn just as much or more than he loved the sound of knuckles on Crowley's throat.

But now Eve was here and she'd know he was a fuck up if meeting his mother hadn't proved that first, if she hadn’t told Eve and that Haistwell doctor person Aziraphale looked up to everything about him. Crowley let himself fall back to the stretcher, it wasn't far, he'd barely managed to curve his shoulders and neck to pretend to be sitting up from it in the first place. He kept his eyes closed and let his head rest for now and the words around him swirl as they liked, they probably weren't meant for him anyway.

Eve had agreed, said it was alright, so she'd move into his– her shed, _hers_ , 'cause at least there was running water and a mattress and room for the fish to get a new tank there. And he'd… figure something out. He still had the Bentley, and the packed bags with clothes and things and some money that he always kept ready to go, and that was a hell of a lot more than he'd had last time he had to suddenly leave a house. So he'd be fine, he'd barely even be on the streets really, only in the very technical sense of sleeping in his car. So it'd be fine, the Bentley had plenty of room in it for extra blankets when it got cold out, and he had enough money saved up to figure out a job so… it'd be fine.

Eve would be safe, and Crowley got the point.

Don't ignore the Baratrum.

* * *

Morning dawned and Crowley slept. They'd given him some sedatives and he was now covered in creams and bandages after a short surgery to remove the layers of dead skin and see what, if anything, needed grafts.

Eve shuddered and patted Aziraphale's shoulder as she passed by in silent commiseration. Aziraphale was sitting in the chair he’d claimed as soon as he and Darby had arrived at the hospital, his face the same frozen mask of worry it had been all night.

There was an officer waiting for her just outside the room, Police Constable Suraj Nayar, who'd been at the scene initially with his partner. He'd offered to help her go through things once everything had been deemed safe enough—or burnt down enough—for her to go through it all. It had been an unexpected offer and Eve was just glad it was him instead of his partner. PC Bill, she didn't catch his last name, had been three steps on the wrong side of 'wanker' in the brief encounter she’d had with him over the phone.

So Eve said yes, she'd let PC Nayar help and maybe she could figure out what Crowley had meant by the fish and the photos by Junior. She hoped the poor dear hadn't died in the fire at least…

"Thank you, officer," Eve said quietly when he opened the door for her to climb out of the cab in front of the ruined garden center. It was a relief, at least, that it'd all just about burnt down flat so there weren't any large beams likely to fall overhead or rickety flooring on the first floor ready to shake or tremble itself down once they stepped into the mess.

Even from the street she could see that both the plant houses were fine and the orchard was alright, though probably covered in ash which would need special tending, and… Crowley's shed. That was alright too. Eve could have cried about it, unbearably relieved that at least _that_ was alright. Crowley really cared about those plants, no matter how he yelled at them, and it'd have been the worst icing on the most terrible cake if what little her boy actually had left was gone too. Especially after such a fraught week.

"Anytime, ma'am," the man replied back, just as quiet and unwilling to break the silence as she was apparently. Until he wasn't, nearly ten minutes into shuffling through the top layer of ash, trying to see if there was anything that could be easily salvaged. They'd both agreed wordlessly than anything truly buried was likely too far gone to bother with anyway.

"Ma'am," the officer started, "I do have a couple of questions to ask, if you don't mind. I'll still help, of course, and if there's anything specific you want me on the lookout for, just say. But I figured I'd ask now, get it out of the way at least…."

Eve sighed in response, taking the time to feel the air leave her lungs and then slowly slip back in with an inhale. Fine, she could do that, everyone was fine and no one was hurt beyond repair. Crowley would have scars but, well, scars would be proof he'd healed, so Eve liked scars.

"Alright, ask what you're gonna ask." She paused for a moment and thought, but there were so many _things_ that had been here, most of sentimental value rather than anything of real monetary value. But there was always, "There's two fish, Crowley said something about 'em so I don't know if he saved them or not, if he was able to, but he mentioned something about the photo album too. So the fish would probably be in a bowl of some sort, or- No, they're pretty big so they'd need a bucket more like to hold them, and the album is book sized. Plain red cover, the older kind without any writing on the front, just a window for a picture… He might have saved those like the doorframe, said something about them being with Junior."

The officer startled and stepped back in shock, a look akin to horror on his face. "He has a kid?!"

There was something nasty welling up in her gut, bubbling like hot tar all the way to her heart, and she wanted to tell him _yes_. There was a mean thing in Eve that she'd always had; it reared its head around people who so obviously didn't love her kids–her _kid_ —the way she did, who didn't see the good in him and only found reasons to kick him when he was already down. He'd only ever tried to be good and she'd already promised to tear down God's throne if They said otherwise; so what was one cop?

But no. That wasn't a fight she had stamina for, not right now. And whatever energy she had built up from the nausea-sick wrath churning her stomach fled in the face of cold, empty exhaustion.

"No." She said instead of the ten million other things she wanted to, "Anthony J Crawly Jr, Esquire, was a snake. Crowley found it out in the garden when he was all of 16 years old and was kind enough to it—or, more likely, fed it enough—that it stuck around. Junior was probably his best friend, to be honest."

PC Nayar's face fell in a different way, so Eve forced herself to feel vindicated with that instead of the devastation the tar demanded. "Was… was the snake, I mean, was Junior in the fire?"

Eve shrugged laconically, far more casually than she felt. She didn't really know.

"I hope not."

Silence fell again and Eve brushed ash off a few things. Broken pottery and dry dirt covered the ground and there were some hidden glass shards, but for the most part they were easy enough to avoid.

"I… uh, my questions." The officer started slowly again, "I just have to ask, for reports, you know?" Eve nodded.

"Have you seen anyone suspicious around?" _No._

"Have you received any threats?" _No._

"Have you noticed any worrying repeat customers?" _No._

The questions were easy and hard at the same time. Easy to answer, but every answer lodged the stone in her gut deeper and and more firmly, becoming heavier and heavier, sinking down into that black tar in her stomach until it pulled the rest of her down too. She knew what kinds of questions these were, she _knew_ they thought Crowley did it, and maybe if she didn't know Crowley she'd have thought he did it, too. If it'd been someone else on the other side of London and she'd only heard about it in the news, she’d probably have shaken her head and maybe believed the story. For all that she liked to think she wasn't the type to judge so quickly, Eve knew herself better than to lie.

They didn't find much, nothing of the sort that Eve was looking for. After a while the officer looked up and squinted, rubbing his hand through his hair, and started off towards the back of the plot, towards Crowley's room. Eve would have followed, except when she took a step she heard the faint thunk of something solid against her foot. It couldn’t be too large, buried beneath the ash as it was, but felt and sounded heavy. For the life of her, she couldn't quite think of what it might be. Her curiosity took hold of her and she used the tip of her toe to push some charred boards away from where she'd felt it. She took care to avoid the shower of glass shards and dust that fell like stars. The glint of the sun off of slightly warped, but ultimately whole, metal made her heart soar. It was nearly enough to pull that sinking rock out of her tar-pit stomach.

"Oh," Eve said softly.

She picked up the ugly ornament from where it was still half-buried in the ash. The ribbon tie through its cocked arm had, of course, burnt away to nothing, but it seemed like the fire hadn't _quite_ gotten hot enough to really melt the thing, made as it must have been from cheap steel slag. The little knight had taken no damage save to gain a bit of color. Maybe some oil or something dripped on it after it heated up, who knew.

Eve held the thing close to her chest and nearly wept for having something from all three of her sons. Crowley, of course, wasn't blood but there was more to family than that. He'd saved her markings from the doorway of Abe and Kay, and now she had something Crowley had gifted to her. A terribly ugly, rough, too-heavy knight made of steel that he'd tied a ribbon around and called an ornament for his fifth Christmas with her. She'd only just gotten him comfortable enough not to call her ma'am or Mrs. Sargon all the time and he'd been so, _so_ worried she'd hate it and so terribly embarrassed that he couldn't do more than that, but she treasured it dearly anyway and hung it up as high as she could manage without it bending the tree—a task that was actually quite easy once they'd gotten a smaller, fake tree since she could curl the wire branch around the thing to keep it up—and kept it out on her desk upstairs the rest of the year.

"Mrs. Sargon?" The officer called back, his voice somewhere halfway between and whisper and a shout to be truthful, it still felt wrong to talk too loud for some reason. "I think I found your fish and photos!"

She hurried over and very much did not cry thank-you-very-much when she saw her red photo album sitting at the base of the apple tree next to some recently overturned dirt and Finwick and Cheeto who swam in small circles in a large punch bowl filled with too many tank greens and gravel.

She'd testify in court, with God as her witness, that she did not cry. Of course, Eve had always been happy to lie to God too if the chance ever came up so she wasn’t sure how much weight that held.

The officer sighed, a heavy thing that spoke to his own exhaustion, and walked slowly to the shed. Paying him no mind, Eve knelt down and stroked along the backs and sides of the massive goldfish, self soothing with their lazy swimming. When she’d assured herself they were safe and healthy, she looked up to see that he’d come back over to her side. Dread gripped her heart and the officer looked back at her, his face mirroring what she felt so perfectly.

"I found a note." He said, holding it up, and the frown on Eve's face deepened into a thin-lipped grimace.

"What does it say?" She asked, knowing she shouldn't. If neither of them know they had plausible deniability. But she'd venture a guess from the look in his eyes, that he'd already read it.

_~~Crow~~ Azathoth,_

_The devil gets his due and you're the one on the chopping block._

_You should know better than to keep him waiting._

_🜲🝤 Prince of the Flies_

"I know that symbol, that it's signed with, I mean," PC Nayar said slowly after a few moments passed. He didn't sound happy about it.

"It's the Baratrum sigil, Regulus Putrefaction. I don't really know what all that means, I'm not one of the detectives or anything on them, but–" he stopped himself before sighing just as heavily as Eve felt and continued, "I heard about it. Seen it in some rough places, that kind of thing. It's… not a light threat that was made here, Ms. Sargon." And that was that. Eve knew he wasn't playing it down. She knew what gangs were like when they thought someone was leaving, not personally, but she'd helped kids out of situations like that. Darby did most of it, but she did what she could.

"I should call Bill," He said. The officer paused and looked at Eve and something passed through his eyes and she knew he'd made a decision. He pulled a lighter from his back pocket, it smelled a bit like cigarette smoke, and after a few clicks a small flame lit up. The note caught at the corner where he held it over the tiny flame, and PC Nayar pursed his lips, traces of worry pinched in the corners of his eyes as he stood next to Eve watching the note burn to ash, indistinguishable from the rest of the charred remains of the garden center coating the trees.

Eve had a better feeling about PC Nayar now than she had an hour ago.

* * *

That better feeling lasted through him offering her a ride back to the hospital. The note weighed heavily on them both and PC Nayar had questions for Crowley. When Eve looked at her watch she realized it was already early evening. She’d not meant to be gone that long, but finding a larger bucket for the fish and making sure they were safe in Crowley’s room took more time than she’d realized.

When they arrived back at Crowley’s hospital room, Eve paused in the doorway, bodily stopping PC Nayar from entering. She was exhausted and heartsick and the sight that greeted them was tranquil enough that she did not think she could stand to disrupt it. Crowley lay in his bed, curled on his side with a light sheet covering him from the waist down. His hands were heavily bandaged and tucked close to his chest protectively. Aziraphale was fast asleep beside him, folded over on the bed with his head resting on his folded forearms. The very tips of Crowley’s bandaged fingers were curled in Aziraphale’s hair.

“Oh,” PC Nayar said, very quietly. “I didn’t– I mean…” He trailed off.

Eve looked at him. “You didn’t what?” She supposed she _could_ have given him the easy way out, she could have accepted his wordless regret.

She was tired of people discounting her boy. Eve could feel him look at her.

He sighed. “For the last twenty years my partner has been convinced that there’s some kind of smuggling operation happening in Crystal Palace. There’s always the local street gangs, toughs with no ambition, you know?”

She shook her head because, no, she didn’t know but she didn’t have the energy to correct him about everything. That could come later.

“Anyway, every once in a while one of those gangs will suddenly move into much harder stuff; guns, drugs, worse. Nothing like what they’ve done before or what any of them have to connections for. S’happened three times since I started working with Bill. They’re nobodies selling pot on street corners or knocking over newsstands and then they’re moving entire shipments of whatever you can think of. Only makes sense if there’s someone else, someone who knows the players, who’s using them to keep their own hands clean.”

“You think Crowley’s involved with one of those?”

PC Nayar shrugged, looking apologetic. “Seems like.”

“Hm.” Before the way Crowley’s voice had broken as he apologized in the ambulance Eve would have called him a liar, told him he could bloody well fuck right off. But, well, Crowley had apologized and he’d cried and she’d had a terrible feeling in her chest ever since then.

“What does that have to do with–?” She waved her hand to indicate what he’d said as they entered.

“It shouldn’t have anything at all to do with it.”

Eve raised one eyebrow and the officer sighed.

“I’m not used to the people I arrest having someone who cares about them that much. It’s one thing to follow the adrenaline and pull him from the fire. I just, I don’t think I expected him to stay with him. I don’t know why.”

Eve snorted. “I suspect you do know why, but you don’t like how it makes you sound.” She left him standing in the doorway and crossed the short space to Aziraphale’s side, laying one gentle hand on his shoulder. He blinked awake, looking confused for a long minute before he sucked in a deep breath and whipped around to look at Crowley.

“He’s doing alright,” Eve told him. “The cop has a few questions for him and I know you’ve not eaten. Why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and find something and we’ll be done by the time you get back.”

Aziraphale looked between her and Crowley, who was still fast asleep.

“You won’t leave him?” he asked, wringing his hands together. “Not that I think you would! Where would you go? Oh no, that’s not what I mean, it’s– I promise, oh, I’m making a mess of this.”

Not for the first time Eve wished she’d been a fly on the wall when these two managed to actually expressed that they “like-liked” each other. She pat Aziraphale’s arm and a bit of his frantic energy drained away.

“I just don’t want him to wake up alone.” The way his eyes cut to PC Nayar told Eve that Aziraphale considered ‘alone’ to include ‘alone with him.’

“Never,” Eve told him, firm as she could be.

She watched as Aziraphale nodded and leaned down, gently brushing a few strands of Crowley’s singed braid back behind his ear. Then, he stood and nodded to them both before taking his leave. As soon as he was gone, PC Nayar stepped into the room, pulling the door until it was very nearly closed. Eve brushed her hand down Crowley’s shoulder, knowing it was one of the few spots that wasn’t likely to ache just then.

He blinked awake, smacking his cracked lips. Eve held the cup of water and straw for him to drink from and then helped him to a roughly sitting position. He hated looking weak and for all that Eve found herself trusting that the officer had good intentions, there was no world in which this conversation wasn’t going to be hard for Crowley.

“‘Lo,” he croaked. Eve settled down in the chair Aziraphale had been sitting in.

“Evening,” PC Nayar said. He pulled a small notebook from his belt. “I’m sorry to bother you here, but I’m sure you understand that this is all a bit time sensitive.”

Crowley nodded.

“Good. First, are you alright with Ms. Sargon being here?”

“Yes.”

“And would you like a lawyer present? I want to be clear that no charges have been pressed, I’m just trying to get all the facts right now.”

Eve wished that Crowley would say yes again, but even as she thought it she knew he wouldn’t. He wanted this all to be over as much as she did.

“No.”

“Okay.” Officer Nayar crossed to the other side of the bed and sat down. “Sorry, it looked like that angle wasn’t too comfortable, is this any better?”

Crowley seemed taken aback by the consideration. His mouth opened and then closed again and Eve caught PC Nayar’s gaze, nodding for him to continue.

“I know you’re in pain, so I’m going to keep this short, we can talk more later. First, are you the Anthony J Crowley who lives at Eve’s Eden in Crystal Palace?”

Crowley nodded.

“And what is the nature of your relationship with Ms. Sargon?”

“She’s my landlady.” Eve scowled. They both knew that wasn’t right, but how else was Crowley meant to sum up everything between them when they’d never actually put it to words themselves?

“You live in the shed out behind the main building and flat?”

Crowley nodded again.

“It’s a studio,” Eve broke in, “Not just a shed. We had it done up a few weeks after he started staying with me.”

The officer made a note. “Thank you. How long have you lived with Ms. Sargon?”

“Since I was 16. Ran away from home–”

“You didn’t run away. The miserable excuses for human beings who called themselves his parents kicked him out.” Eve knew she wasn’t meant to be speaking up, but she refused to let Crowley paint such a terrible picture of himself when it wasn’t the truth.

“Why did they kick you out?”

The reprimand froze on Eve’s tongue. The cold look on Darrington’s face and Crowley’s open devastation flashed through her mind. What possible excuse could they have given–

“Got a tattoo,” Crowley’s hand jerked towards the small snake on his cheek. “They thought it meant I was mixed up with a bad crowd.”

PC Nayar leaned forward. “Were you?”

Crowley shook his head.

“Mr. Crowley,” PC Nayar started.

“Just Crowley please,” Eve interrupted, “He doesn’t like mister.”

“Crowley, you need to tell me the truth. You might still be in danger.”

Crowley snorted. His hands were clenched as tightly as the bandages would allow. “Jus’ stupid kids. No giant conspiracy or nothin’.”

And Eve’s heart broke because she knew Crowley more than she knew anyone in this world other than Darby and she knew he was lying.

“Crowley,” she said.

He glanced at her and his fist clenched tighter.

“That’s it. I don’t know what my friends from ten years ago have to do with the garden center b–burning.” He was very pale beneath the bandages.

PC Nayar and Eve exchanged a look. “Perhaps everything,” the officer said, “Crowley, we found a note. We know you’re involved in something.”

Crowley shook his head. He was breathing faster now.

“No,” he muttered. “Not in any trouble. W–wouldn’t put Eve in danger.”

A terrible thought occured to Eve lighting-sharp and lichtenberg-cracked through her leaving her cold with realization; what if he’d stuck out whatever trouble he was in because he was worried about her? What if they’d threatened her because she lived with him? It would make sense, given the fire. What other reason would he have to continue so obviously lying?

Perhaps, if she removed that reason he would be honest and they could clear this all up.

She swallowed, steeling her nerves.

“Crowley,” Eve said, catching his gaze. “This is too much. Whatever you’re involved in got Eden burnt to the ground. I–” she paused and swallowed before pressing forward in her own lie. “I don’t want you living with me anymore.”

* * *

The world fell out from underneath Crowley and it was alright, because he knew it was coming. Still, though, how do you brace for something like that? How do you hold yourself so you do not fall when there is nothing anymore beneath your feet or hands? Crowley had known for a long time that the world wasn't fair, he'd accepted it and he'd internalized the reality of it, but deep down in his rotten heart he bled optimism.

He _hoped_ , he always hoped so much that this time wouldn’t be the time he was set adrift, that he was marooned to his own devices, and his hope always seemed to hurt him. Becoming something more like holding onto thorny brambles and telling himself that grabbing a rose for his next handhold would hurt any less. Or worse, that it might somehow heal him. And when that didn't happen, the not being healed hurt all the more.

The words echoed in his head _this is too much I don’t want you living with me_ , and they didn't stop until they were a knell that shattered the rest of him with its resonance and the _rightness_ of it. There was a terrible, tar-pit part of him in the center of his chest that bubbled and boiled with vindictive anger and the desire to lash out, to create enough of a fuss that Eve would be forced out. But he was too tired for that, suddenly, utterly exhausted and without any room left in him for the big emotions. They were smothered by the tar, snuffed out before they ever catch hold.

Yeah.

That made sense.

It was always going to come to this, eventually. He'd been in Eve's life for a solid decade now, no wonder he'd overstayed his welcome.

"Alright." Crowley said at last, little more than a whisper. He closed his eyes and let his head sink to the pillow. For a split second it felt like he thought drowning might, except he could breathe perfectly fine no matter how little he wanted to. He could still taste smoke. "Alright. Whatever you want."

Crowley felt Suraj's eyes on him and he couldn't banish the wild thought that it was with something like pity. He screwed up his face into the fierce, rude look he'd normally aim at Bill, and opened his eyes as wide as he could, lips twisted into silent sneer. "Ask me." He hissed, anger and physical pain curdled together, turning his voice truly grotesque.

So, Suraj did. And Crowley sang like a canary, and every passing minute felt more and more like he was the one they'd brought into the coal mine.

 _Tell me about the gang._ "The Baratrum started off with five members, didn't even call ourselves that to be honest then. Me, Bee, Dagon, Ligur, and Hastur. Not members, just. Just friends."

 _When did it get named?_ "Not sure, I'm the last to know, y’know? I'm just… there. A hold over from when we were friends and it wasn't so big. 'Round the time we all got names."

 _Do you have one? A name like those?_ "Yeah… yeah I do. It's a mean one, gotta say. I didn't choose it, think Dagon did actually. Azathoth. _The Blind Idiot God._ I hate that name, call sign, whatever. Thought some bloke who thought foreigners were scary or something had cool monsters, or whatever."

 _Where's their base of operations?_ "Like fuck 'f I know mate, they threw me at the cops mostly. R'member that car crash you kept me overnight for? Like that. I'm the fall man, not a planner. You don't tell your fall man shite, even I know that."

 _You really don't know anything about their day-to-day?_ "Mate, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I didn't _want_ to know their day-to-day. I got rung up 'round once a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, but average 'bout that. I got told, be here, do this, wait for whoever-the-fuck, drop this off there; so I did."

 _Why? Did you stay that is. You can't have been friends still, doesn't even sound like you like them…_ "That's just it, I guess. There's not much I got to my name, other than bad choices, a pack of smokes, and old friends that don't even like me. Suppose it must'a been the money, then.

 _The money? What'd they pay you like? What for?_ "Enough to afford that car, and the mechanics lessons, and a spot to put her overnight at least. Though I skimmed off that too by doin' the repairs m’self when they crashed her. Think they liked arriving to places in style more than they minded payin' out the nose for it."

 _And who's in charge? Of the Baratrum._ "Beelzebub, hands down. They're the top dog and Dagon's their right-hand. Logistics mostly, finances. Ligur and Hastur are pretty much just muscle, but muscle that got in early I guess, and a taste for it too."

On and on they went until night fell and a little past that, and his lips cracked and he bled a bit from them when he was offered water through a straw but he didn't stop because the moment he did he'd never start again. They continued all the way up until Aziraphale showed himself into the room again with a soft little smile and a little thing of freezer-burned vanilla ice cream from the hospital cafe and two spoons. The moment that door opened Crowley shut up and turned his eyes to Aziraphale. He was tired, dead tired, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week. A little coma, death lite™, as a treat.

Aziraphale's smile dropped and through the haze of his own exhaustion Crowley realized how forced it had looked now that it was gone.

He’d just opened his mouth to say something, anything, he had no idea what, when Eve surprised him by leaning into his field of view with a gentle look on her face and a soft hand on his wrist. He flinched back. Manacled again, surrounded by people he couldn't escape but that wanted nothing to do with him except for what he could tell them, what he owed them, and Aziraphale.

There was silence left over in the room, broken only by Suraj's shuffling, the sound of his gear and clothing shifting over each other deafening in the stillness. The cop left, and then there were two. Eve and Aziraphale still seemed a little… Crowley wasn't sure, actually. Aziraphale had this unreadable look on his face he'd only ever seen the man wear around his family at dinner when he was trying very hard not to seem like he was upset at some quip or cutting comment that hit just a little too close. Eve on the other hand looked… guilty, maybe. It wasn't something Crowley had seen on her face before so he couldn't be sure, but her shoulders were bowed forward and her lips were pulled down at the corners and pursed.

Eve's hand on his wrist tightened and Crowley swallowed heavily, closed his eyes, and let his head turn away to face Aziraphale instead. He didn't know why she was still there if it was all too much for her…

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment, "I didn't mean that, I just… didn't want you to feel like you had to do anything for me, stay wrapped up in all that to be around."

Crowley didn't look at her, he couldn't, not just yet. It was still too raw, hurt too much, even though he'd been expecting this shoe to drop for the last decade… apparently waiting for so long made him complacent, put him off his guard, and let him open up himself to being hurt more than he should have been by the inevitable.

"Alright," he replied after a moment, "Alright." Because that was all he could manage. He was alright, it'd be alright, he'd be fine. There wasn't much else he could be.

There was some shifting around again, from Aziraphale it sounded like, but Crowley didn't bother to move his head to track it or open his eyes, he couldn't really bring himself to care or even feel at all vindicated in his correct guess when Aziraphale spoke beside Eve.

"Ah, Ms. Sargon, he looks pretty tired, so the nurses will probably throw us out soon anyway," Aziraphale murmured, just low enough that Crowley had to strain to listen. "Maybe come back in a few days, when he's not so drowned in drugs?"

Another pause, it was deliberate and Crowley could only imagine the look Eve gave Aziraphale, but he couldn't really bring himself to care. Caring just… was too much. Too much energy, too much everything, and he wished he could go on a run. He didn't always like them, they jarred his hip a lot, but sometimes choosing that pain was nice, could clear his head if he had to think about things he didn't like thinking about.

Then Eve stood, Crowley thought, and left the room without another word. The sorry hung behind her and pressed down into Crowley's chest like a boulder, conspicuously missing any invitation back.

Not that he'd been expecting it, of course.

He should probably leave some of the mattress money for her too, it would be the least he could do since it was his fault all her clothes and things had burnt up, and he could leave some stuff in the dresser-closet thing he had that should fit her until she could get more at least… The skirts she’d always been okay with him wearing around the shop would fit even if none of his trousers would. He didn’t need them.

Aziraphale shuffled around again, to the side Crowley was facing, and gently threaded his fingers through Crowley's. He was careful not to hurt him, and Crowley nearly cried at the tenderness and the utter lack of _trapped_ he felt. He opened his eyes and, even though he couldn't manage a smile or any more words for Aziraphale through the weariness that had settled over him, he was pretty sure Aziraphale knew anyway.

Outside the door, from his vantage point by the side of Crowley's bed and melting ice cream forgotten in his hand, Aziraphale could just barely make out the officer and Dr Haistwell in the hall.

* * *

“We’ve not had a chance to speak.”

The police officer looked up and smiled at Darby, his teeth bright and overly straight and his eyes very tired. Darby understood the sentiment.

“We haven’t.” The officer stood and held out one hand to Darby. “I’m Police Constable Suraj Nayar — pleasure to meet you. Please don’t ask for anything too time consuming, I’m just about ready to sleep for a week as soon as we’ve got this wrapped.” He was still smiling as if he expected that Darby would smile back and they could share the classic English Good Old Boys laugh (setting aside they were neither both men nor what a Good Old Boy would accept into their ranks).

“Darby Eaton Amarinth Thierry Haistwell,” Darby said, very carefully emphasizing the name. Ens was fairly positive the PC wouldn’t recognize the Haistwell name, but it couldn’t hurt. “How do you do.”

“How can I help you today, Mister Haistwell?”

“Professor, please. I don’t wear this for fashionable reasons,” Darby tapped the enamel pin on ens’ lapel. The officer leaned in close, squinting against his clear exhaustion to read it.

“Oh shit, sorry about that,” he said, pulling off his hat and scrubbing one hand through his hair. “How can I help, Professor?”

Darby smiled at him for the first time. Perhaps the tentative plan that had begun to steep in ens’ mind would work after all.

“You’ve spoken with both Azira and Crowley, yes?”

PC Nayar nodded. He picked up the chipped coffee mug from the makeshift desk he’d been using and grimaced at the way the old tea bag had adhered itself to the side.

“I believe there’s a kettle in the physician’s lounge,” Darby told him.

“Cheers,” PC Nayar said, liting the mug towards ens. They started towards the lounge.

“Yes, I’ve spoken with both of them,” the officer said, “It’s a terrible thing. Crowley might be involved in, well, that’s not for me to say, but I’ve got no evidence he’s involved willingly.”

Darby hummed. Ens watched as PC Nayar filled the kettle and set it to boil before rinsing his mug and dropping in a fresh bag of PG Tips. It certainly wasn't anything fancy, by far, but it would do in a pinch.

“No,” Darby finally said, “He’s not. Nor is Azira.”

“Oh yeah, no, I didn’t expect Mister Fell would be,” PC Nayar hastened to assure ens. “He just got caught up in Crowley’s trouble.”

There was a lot Darby wanted to say there, but now was not the time. So, instead ens swallowed back the words of defense that wanted to escape and said, “Quite. However, I know Azira. He’s ah, passionate in his defense of those he loves. You only need look to the fact that _he_ is the one who ran into that fire to pull Crowley out.” PC Nayar frowned. “Ms. Sargon told me what you discovered at the garden center, about the note. They are _both_ in danger. Clearly the people who burnt Eden didn’t care about collateral damage.”

The kettle shrieked. PC Nayar reached over and picked it up, pouring the boiling water over his waiting tea bag.

“You’re right,” he said. “But, we just don’t have the manpower to put them in protective custody, especially since there hasn’t been a direct threat against Mr. Fell.”

Darby snorted. “Full offence, Officer, but I’m not putting my boy into the custody of the people who have thus far failed to do anything at all to protect his partner.”

PC Nayar looked for a moment as if he might argue, but then he sighed and took a sip of tea. After swallowing he nodded. “That’s entirely fair, though I don’t like what it says about my partner and I.”

“Good.”

The officer’s fingers tightened around the handle of his mug, but he still did not try to argue.

“I’m not asking you to put them in protective anything. In the past, when young people have needed a place away from their families, Ms. Sargon and I have facilitated that. I have a small cottage, a bit of old family land, a few hours away from the city.”

“Young people?”

Darby nodded, pleased by the question. The officer could have been suspicious or immediately said no, that there was no way _his_ witness would be leaving his sight. Instead he quietly picked up on the most important part of what Darby had said.

“Yes, those whose families are unwilling to allow them the dignity of choice in their lives. The details are unimportant right now, save that it was never for anything this immediately violent. I’m… concerned that we’d not be able to slip under the radar, as it were.”

PC Nayar nodded slowly. He took another sip of tea. “They’d still be available to talk to me?”

“When they want, unless you plan to press any charges. Then, their lawyer would be in contact.”

“Of course.” He set his tea down and stepped forward, holding one hand out to Darby. “Professor, if you can convince them to leave and give me directions to this cottage, I will guarantee that no one knows they’ve left the city if I have to drive them there myself.”

Darby shook his hand.

* * *

**One Week Later**

“Oh dear, please wait for me.”

Aziraphale threw the car into park and launched himself from the seat, scurrying around its strangely pointed nose to Crowley’s door and leaning in to catch the other man with a gentle hand on his chest just as he began to list forward precariously.

“Mmhgph,” Crowley grunted.

“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale soothed, more than used to Crowley’s noises at this point. “I know it hurts.”

Crowley sighed. He pressed his forehead to Aziraphale’s sternum. “Yeah,” he said.

Aziraphale’s heart clenched. It had only been a week, but he didn’t think he’d ever get used to Crowley being so strangely open about his pain. As soon as they’d switched him to oral painkillers any trace of the man who’d hidden broken ribs was gone. Aziraphale had never thought he’d miss that stoicism, but he found the lack of it felt less like trust and more like Crowley simply did not have the will to even try and act like himself.

It was frightening.

“Just a bit longer,” Aziraphale said, “Professor Haistwell said the bedroom is on the ground floor so there aren’t even any steps.”

“‘Kay.”

Crowley waited for Aziraphale to slide an arm around his shoulders, lifting him so that as little weight as possible was one his aching feet. Even still, by the time they reached the front door Aziraphale could hear the bitten off grunts of pain.

“Almost there,” he said, “Just a touch more.”

He fumbled the key into the lock and the door swung open with a very quiet creak. As much as he wanted to, Aziraphale didn’t allow them anytime to take in the space that would be their home for the foreseeable future, not with the way Crowley was leaning ever heavier on him.

They crossed the front room quickly. The bedroom was small, but there were sheets on the bed and a light duvet folded at the bottom. Aziraphale lowered Crowley to the mattress.

“Alright, love?”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s eyes were closed as he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. “‘Ziraphale.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Right.” He pressed a gentle kiss to Crowley’s forehead, pleased when, despite everything Crowley still leaned into it. “I’ll just get our bags. Here, try to eat this,” he pulled a slightly squashed protein bar from his back pocket. They’d discovered a few days ago that they were easier for Crowley to choke down when they’d been warmed a bit, so Aziraphale took to keeping a few on his person. “Here’s your water bottle.” Crowley took them both. His hands were still bandaged but his palms had taken the brunt of the damage and he could hold things in his fingers so long as he was careful.

“Thanks.” His lips quirked in a tiny smile as he looked up through his eyelashes at Aziraphale. “My personal nurse.”

“Quite right.” This time Aziraphale kissed him on the lips, wanting to feel that tiny smile. They’d been so rare this last week.

“I love you,” he said very firmly when they parted. Crowley’s eyes fluttered shut, but the tiny smile was still there.

Buoyed by this success, Aziraphale forced himself to leave Crowley behind and trot out to the car. Their bags were in the back, his own hastily packed in his flat the previous night and Crowley’s from the boot of the Bentley, seemingly already ready to go. He scooped them both up, along with the larger bag of his books and papers and the small one of Crowley’s medical supplies. Then, he turned back to the cottage.

This time he paused at the door just long enough to bow his head in a short prayer that they might be safe here.

Surely they’d earned that. And besides, nothing more bad could happen to them. He wouldn’t allow it. Towns like this, full of little cottages and winding lanes and thatched roofs and names like West Harringdale, or, like this one, Tadfield, weren’t meant for bad things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	22. Of Shaking Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After almost a year of bi-weekly updates on time (other than the initial day shift) we were late. We're so sorry! 
> 
> We'll be back on track for next chapter, but we both really felt the strain of writing this week and needed the extra couple of days to make sure this chapter was up to snuff and we were happy with it.
> 
> Thank you for your patience! 
> 
> A HUGE thank you to EdnaV for the britpick! <3 <3
> 
> Warnings: panic attacks (incl. one fairly severe one) and mild self-loathing.

_** 1 Month Later ** _

" _This_ ," Crowley scowled. He curled in on himself, slouched and artfully crumpled over a chair in a way he hoped looked effortless instead of like he still had trouble breathing around his ribs. "Is a stupid idea."

Aziraphale sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before breathing in sharply. "So you've said, dear."

"No, no, angel." Crowley straightened up only enough to shove his elbows up on the table they sat at so he could better frown up at Suraj where he sat across from him. As much as the man might have helped them before with the move and all, Crowley was never going to trust him. He’d been dragged in for questioning one too many times by Bill with Suraj not uttering a word of protest for that. "I mean, this is a really, _really_ stupid idea. Think of an earthworm that’s had a few too many concussions and you’re still not in the right neighborhood. My damn ficus could come up with something better than–"

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale and cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. Reaching out haphazardly, he covered one Aziraphale's knees with the palm of his hand and averted his eyes towards the door. Acknowledging Suraj was still in the room just made his skin crawl at this point and he needed to say this.

"It's– it's not you– fuck. Shit, no." Crowley sighed forcefully and let his head plonk down onto the table, looking at _either_ of them was too much right now as all sorts of feelings swirled darkly through his chest. He felt his face and neck turn red and prickle in embarrassment. He always seemed to fuck up his words whenever they were most important. "It's not you. It’s him. He will, angel, he's dangerous and I can't–"

The sound of a cup being set onto the table was deafening, even though it had been gentle. Crowley looked up and flinched minutely at the serious look on Aziraphale's face. His hands were still on the cup in front of him, curling around the mug like it could strengthen him. Maybe it did, there had to be some reason people thought tea was comforting, even if Crowley himself hadn't ever thought so. Caffeine just made him jittery and tired, but faster, most days it felt like. Tea hadn't ever been a comfort, in Crowley's mind.

"Don’t you see, Crowley? That’s why I need to do this. He’s dangerous and you’ve been under his thumb for so very long. I cannot stand for that." Aziraphale's voice was gentle, but firm, and Crowley despaired of arguing him out of it, but so help him God he was gonna try anyway.

"I don't want you in danger for me, Aziraphale. M'not–"

"I'll thank you," Aziraphale cut in smoothly, voice suddenly stern in a way that made Crowley think of Eve at her most upset, "not to finish that sentence."

Crowley's head thunked back down onto the table and he muttered darkly under his breath. "Never should'a let this guy in. Like a bad fuckin, what’s the American phrase? A bad dime, keeps coming back around."

The smug smile in Aziraphale's voice as he primly replied, "My dear, have you ever even seen a dime?" nearly made Crowley smile, and that was patently unfair of Aziraphale.

"Shaddap." He grumbled anyway, attempting to hide the humor that stole over him even as he squeezed Aziraphale's knee. "Just… fine. What the fuck do we have to lose, 'cept everything, I guess."

* * *

** 3 weeks ago **

"How are we feeling, love?" Aziraphale asked gently as he set two cups of tea down on the nightstand and sat on the bed beside Crowley. They'd been in the cottage for just about a week now, and as much as Crowley loved waking up beside Aziraphale every day, the man looked so _tired_. Crowley groaned in response and kept his eyes closed tight, only letting his face relax a little when Aziraphale sighed softly, like he was trying to stifle it, and stroked his hand over Crowley's hair, pushing it back from his face. His eyes cracked open, just enough to see what kind of face Aziraphale was making, and grimaced when he realized the man was looking away from him.

"Do we think we can get up today, then?" There was something in Aziraphale's voice that stoked the shame high in Crowley's chest until it was an uncomfortable, burning, tar-ball of a knot in him. It sounded like Aziraphale was begging, like it was a plea. And that hurt. He'd sounded like that for the last three days and it didn't get any better hearing it again.

"My hip hurts." It wasn't an answer, but Aziraphale accepted it anyway and stroked Crowley's hair a little longer, and Crowley could almost pretend he didn't hurt _everywhere_. He didn't even know if his hip hurt, or if the rest of him hurt, to be honest. He didn't know if his chest hurt because of his lungs or because of his ribs, he didn't know if his feet hurt because they were still burned or if they shouldn't cause they were practically healed (they weren't), and he especially didn't know if his eyes hurt because it was so bloody bright out all the time, even at night, or if he was just making it all up.

Maybe he’d made it all up and everything that had happened was actually because he was an awful person. Maybe it really was his fault.

Maybe it would be better if he just stayed curled up in this bed and never left again.

"Ah," Aziraphale replied softly, and continued to pet Crowley's hair, "Alright."

"Would…" Crowley asked, forcing the words out just barely loud enough to be heard, unsure if he even wanted to be heard in the first place. If he said it quietly, if he asked and he wasn't heard, then it wasn't his fault when he wasn't listened to, wasn't it? "Would you stay? With me?"

"Oh, _Crowley_ ," Aziraphale murmured, and it seemed like sighing was all Aziraphale did anymore. Crowley was starting to hate the sound of it even as he craved every possible sound Aziraphale granted him. There was a knock on the door below that cut off whatever it was Aziraphale had been intending to say, the silence between them resounded, a deafening, inescapable knell. It gripped Crowley's chest tight, pulling him down into the bed and the blankets and making him seize in fear.

_This is it._

They'd been found, he'd been tracked down to the middle of the bloody countryside and they'd set this on fire too and Aziraphale'd be stuck here with him as they burned, 'cause they'd know better than to let him leave again this time and _fuck_ he never should've said _anything_ what sort of dumb, fuck-up snitched like that after a single–

Aziraphale's hand fell to the back of Crowley's neck, down further towards his spine between his shoulders. He gripped him tight and hauled him up until Crowley’s face was firmly pressed against Aziraphale's chest. "Breathe, love, breathe. It's fine, it'll be alright, I'm here, come on now, my dear, breathe with me."

Aziraphale's words were short and stern and there was no way on any normal day Crowley would be able to say no to him, let alone now when he could barely think straight for the panic that wracked his body and made him tremble. He shook and gasped for breath and felt like he'd never be able to breathe again even with Aziraphale helping him along, even with his face in Aziraphale's chest and arms made strong by carrying weighty books encircling him to keep him safe.

But Aziraphale wanted him to and so, somehow, he managed to calm a little, mid still racing but not to the point of hysteria anymore, he could breathe, a little, or pretend to anyway.

And then there was another knock.

"Azira– ziraphale, no!" Crowley hissed, diving forward until his own arms were wrapped around Aziraphale in turn and his face was hidden again, pressing his eyes into Aziraphale's collarbone to keep the terrified tears from falling and betraying him worse than his voice had. "No, no no, please no, you can't, can't go see it, they'll– _fuck_ they'll there's a fire they're gonna, 'ziraphale please, please, no we've gotta– we'll hide, run away. C'mon sneak out the back, 's fine, fine, we'll be fine, gotta–"

Crowley flung himself from bed, his panic taking him in a new direction. He half-dove, half-fell to the floor to scrabble under the bed with uncoordinated hands, reaching for the go-bag he never really unpacked. The other one was still in the boot of the Bentley but he had a wild confidence born of utter panic that told him they'd manage to get to it anyway even if the cottage burnt.

"Crow– Crowley!" Aziraphale was standing now —and when had that happened?— and pulled Crowley out from under the bed, his hands firm on his hips. Crowley panicked, it felt like he was being dragged back into a fight, Hastur overlaid Aziraphale, for just a moment, and Crowley lashed out with his foot. It wasn't a kick, not really, he hadn't had enough build up for one, but Aziraphale clearly hadn’t expected to be pushed away and stumbled back, landing on his arse half-way across the room.

"Azir– oh fuck, sorry, sorrysorry, Aziraphale I'm so sorry, I didn't mean–"

"Crowley." Aziraphale cut through Crowley's babbling, voice sharp and stern. "Just… just calm down." Crowley's stomach dropped out of his body, down into the pits of Hell, and he froze at seeing how cold and stone-like Aziraphale's expression was. Nigh-on unreadable, except for that he Wasn't Pleased. Ice settled in Crowley's gut where his stomach used to be and it frosted his lungs. He shivered again, or maybe he was still trembling and had never stopped, but did as he was told.

Crowley shifted to sit up, his back against the side of the bed, and held his breath as Aziraphale watched. He pretended to breathe, moving his ribs and shoulders in a facsimile of it. He counted the seconds of each fake cycle, trying to keep them as even as possible.

"I'm going to answer the door. Stay here," Aziraphale said, and his countenance broke, just a little, the softness peaking through like tendrils of greenery breaking down a garden statue left to decay.

"Okay," Crowley said.

And Aziraphale left.

* * *

Aziraphale left the door to the shared bedroom open behind him as he walked down the stairs to the front room. The cottage was small, with only two bedrooms and a bathroom above, and the rest of the living area below. It wasn't the best for Crowley's bad days with all the stairs, but it was what they had, so they made do. Aziraphale rubbed at the spot on his chest, right at the sternum, where Crowley's foot had caught him. He thanked God silently that the man hadn't been wearing his usual boots (of course, he wouldn’t in bed, but once the thought occurred to him he couldn't help but be grateful). The hard soles were sharp at the edges and Aziraphale wasn't entirely convinced he'd have gotten away with just a quickly-forming bruise under his shirt.

He reached the bottom of the steps and the knock on the door sounded again.

After a moment to steel himself, Crowley’s worries were contagious it seemed, Aziraphale looked through the peephole on the door and sighed silently in relief. Oh God bless, it was only PC Nayar.

"Good afternoon, Officer." Aziraphale greeted placidly, as if nothing was the matter and he wasn't terrified Crowley was hiding under their bed upstairs or ripping apart the room in his panicked mania, looking for God knows what. "Would you like to come in?"

PC Nayar nodded and tossed a look over his shoulder in what looked like habit, before politely swiping his feet over the mat that said ‘WILCUMA’ even though there wasn't any mud nearby, and stepped inside.

"Thank you, Mr. Fell." PC Nayar nodded and continued into the kitchen, just to the left of the stairs from the doorway—it was an older cottage for sure, and Aziraphale would have suspected the professor never having had it remodeled except for the electric lights and appliances from at least the 80's. A loud thump sounded from above and Aziraphale grimaced, shoulders rising towards his ears.

"I just have a bit of paperwork to finish up and– Azira, are you alright?" PC Nayar turned to him and frowned when he saw how keyed up the young man was. His frown only deepened when Aziraphale cottoned on, forcing his shoulders to relax and a smile to his face.

"Ah, no, I think we're rather not." Aziraphale smiled politely, despite his words. "Would you mind waiting here? Turn on the kettle for tea. I've got to go get Crowley and help him down." The tightness in his voice and the thin smile on his lips must have made some sort of sense to PC Nayar, for however little sense Aziraphale made to himself these days, because the officer nodded and moved towards the kettle without a word.

Aziraphale had just been about to head back up to the bedroom to reassure Crowley that all was well and help him downstairs, when the man himself appeared looking calm as you please. Unless, that is, you were as familiar with the masks Crowley wore as Aziraphale was. One couldn't spend a full week fretting about a man in one's bed and watching all his walls crumble against his will without learning what exactly those walls looked like.

PC Nayar may not have noticed, but Aziraphale caught the little sleight of hand that hid Crowley closing the small knife in his hand and slipping it into his pocket like it had never been out in the first place. He was still shaking, just a little, the motion only visible at his fingertips. Aziraphale's chest ached at how well-practiced Crowley so obviously was at hiding his panic and his fear from people who he _should_ be able to trust to protect him.

Aziraphale sighed again, a small thing, barely enough to count as a breath at all.

Crowley quickly took a seat at the table and Aziraphale carefully did not notice the way Crowley pretended not to favor his bad hip, putting extra sway into his steps so it looked purposeful. He took three mugs out of the cupboard and watched Crowley and PC Nayar carefully, his own worries stuffed down in favor of keeping an eye on how Crowley wrapped his hands around the underside of the table, hidden from PC Nayar, the way his leg tapped nearly silently on the floor in short, rapid bursts, how his breath was far too measured to be anything but hiding an ongoing panic.

The silence in the kitchen was stifling and Aziraphale could feel his own anxiety ratcheting up until he felt ready to shove his head in the oven and scream, if only to let this crying, angry thing out of his lungs. But the silence ticked on and PC Nayar carefully shuffled some papers and the whole thing probably only took less than a minute or two but felt like aeons.

Finally, PC Nayar began to speak and he placed two manilla folders on the table and began pulling out a handful of documents with color pictures clipped to the front. Those were quickly covered by other papers with far more words on them and what looked like places for signatures and transcriptions of statements Crowley had already given.

Crowley quickly moved his hands from underneath the table, crossing them in front of his chest. He leaned back in a way that made Aziraphale wince, thinking of how much pressure it was putting on his hips, so much pain with nary a grimace in service of putting up a front of nonchalance and apathy for the benefit of absolutely no one. Aziraphale fretted to himself about whether Crowley would snap or if it would be worse for Crowley in the long run if Aziraphale were to try to bully him into being more comfortable while the officer was still here. He very much did not like the conclusions he came to.

For all that Crowley trusted Aziraphale enough to let him see glimpses of how truly terrible he currently felt, he was still a proud man. That trust had been built in the darkest hours of many nights, from halting words and conversations that still weighed Aziraphale's heart down. He hated to think about all the people who'd done Crowley wrong, about the sheer unfairness of his life thus far.

"–so you've got a bit of a stipend for the next couple of calls. I've marked you as an informant on what's going on so if you hear anything let me know and we'll keep you safe and out of the sights of the Baratrum." Aziraphale tuned back in as PC Nayar wrapped up his spiel and Crowley watched the officer with sharp, uncovered eyes. He hadn’t worn his sunglasses since the fire. Aziraphale never thought he’d miss them.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I signed your shit, just leave." Crowley grumbled and tossed the cheap pen onto the table.

PC Nayar didn't say anything in response. He grabbed the pen and the papers Crowley had signed off on and shuffled them into order before pulling out the photos once more. He sighed and motioned for Aziraphale to come over. The kettle went off, Aziraphale jumped a little at the sound, but he only turned it off rather than making them all tea. Aziraphale was sure he wouldn't be able to prepare a pot or even three mugs without shaking. The worry of PC Nayar's visit was finally hitting him, the relief that it was only the officer rather than anything, or anyone, Crowley had clearly thought it might be.

Aziraphale crossed the room and sat beside Crowley, taking his hand and threading their fingers together. It didn't help calm him, not by much, but the warmth of Crowley's palm was grounding at the very least. He was tired, so, so tired and felt like sleeping for days, even if it only meant not feeling like he was ready to shake apart at any moment.

"As part of us keeping you safe," PC Nayar said slowly, taking the time to look both of them in the eyes to impart his seriousness, "We need to know if you've seen any of these people."

One by one photos were laid out and Crowley identified all of them by their code names. Beelzebub, Ligur, Hastur, Dagon, Morrick, Gloon, Nug and Yeb… and then the last one was laid out and Crowley froze. Aziraphale kept his eyes locked on Crowley’s face as much as he could, unwilling to have real faces to add to his own nightmares.

"That's–" Crowley grimaced and Aziraphale squeezed his hand three times, leaning in closer to offer what comfort he could, "God, that's a customer of our– of Eve's. Gave me the creeps every time he showed up, yanno? Comes every couple months or so, something, and spends a _ridiculous_ amount on hard to care for plants, big arrangements, statement pieces, that kinda thing…" Crowley trailed off and his breathing picked up.

Aziraphale stifled a sigh and wrapped an arm around Crowley's shoulder, unable to do anything else about a burgeoning panic attack. Looking over at the table and the pictures, Aziraphale couldn't help but snort a laugh.

"Oh," he chuckled, "What's my astronomy professor doing there?"

Beneath his arm Crowley's chest ceased heaving and PC Nayar's eyes shot up to meet Aziraphale's.

"What?!"

* * *

**_ Present Day _ **

"Shaddap." He grumbled anyway, attempting to hide the humor that stole over him even as he squeezed Aziraphale's knee. "Just… fine. What the fuck do we have to lose, 'cept everything, I guess."

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, more than a little exasperated to be having this conversation yet again. It seemed it was all they’d talked about since PC Nayar came to see them and presented the idea. “It’s as safe as can be, there will be people there to look out for me and it’s not like I haven’t been alone with him before.”

“And I’d’ve hated that if I knew! Fuck!” Crowley’s grip on Aziraphale’s knee was a vise. He’d had fewer panic attacks the last few days, but still seemed to be on the edge of one more often than not. He took a huge breath and let it out in a single stuttering whoosh before speaking again, his voice much quieter than before. “Aziraphale, please. I– I can’t stand the idea of losing you because you put yourself in danger for me.”

Aziraphale lay his own hand atop Crowley’s, squeezing just hard enough that he knew the feeling would linger for a bit. “Not for you, love. I’m doing this for us. I _refuse_ to let that foul man ruin anything else.”

Crowley closed his eyes, swallowing. He was pale, cheekbones made hollow in his worry, but he nodded.

“Okay,” he whispered. “But, if you’re hurt I’m holding this one,” he jerked his free hand towards PC Nayar, “personally responsible.”

PC Nayar laughed. “Please do, I’ve worked hard to make this safe for him and believe me, if there were another way to get the information we need, I’d never have asked in the first place.”

“Yeah, fine,” Crowley said. “Let’s get it over with.”

Aziraphale stood from the table and kissed the back of Crowley’s skull. “I’m going to get dressed, I’ll be back down in a few.” He hurried upstairs. His suit was already laid out on the bed. It wasn’t his nicest, but it was one of the more expensive ones. Anathema had mailed it to him with a note wishing him good luck (they hadn’t told her anything, but, as Aziraphale was rapidly discovering was the usual, she seemed to have a feeling). Aziraphale dressed quickly, craning his hearing to try and pick out words from the murmured voices he could just barely make out downstairs.

As soon as he was dressed he slung his book bag over his shoulder and started for the stairs.

“And if Avgerinós makes him?” He heard Crowley ask as he started down the steps.

“Then the officers in the building, including myself, will help him. We’ve no reason to think Avgerinós is armed when he’s on campus and he’s got no reason to suspe– Ah, Azira.”

The officer and Crowley were seated exactly as they had been when he left. Crowley twisted to look at him and it seemed he was about to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. He stood from his chair.

“I’ll go get the car started,” PC Nayar said, “Give you two a moment. We need to leave soon, Mr. Fell.”

As soon as the front door clicked shut, Crowley had wrapped Aziraphale in a tight hug, his nose buried in the crook of his neck. “I don’t like it,” he said, voice muffled and broken.

Aziraphale’s chest felt as if it had been flayed open. “Yeah,” he said, returning the embrace, “Me either.”

“Then _why?_ Aziraphale, please.”

“Because I love you, Crowley, and doing this means he won’t hurt you again.”

Crowley huffed a wet breath against him and then shifted, releasing Aziraphale only long enough to reach up and cup his face in his hands. When he kissed him it was soft, more tender than Aziraphale had expected it might be given his desperation and worry. His lips were still a bit rough, the healing having been slowed by biting at them as he worried, but Aziraphale still wanted nothing more than to linger there, to lick his way into Crowley’s mouth and forget there was anyone in the world but them.

Aziraphale’s phone chimed, breaking the spell. Reluctantly, he pulled back.

“I should go,” he whispered. Crowley nodded, eyes closed. He stepped back away from Aziraphale, his hands dropping to wrap around his chest. They made their way to the door and Aziraphale stepped out. “I’ll be back this evening,” he said, not daring to look at Crowley.

“Right,” Crowley said, voice very small.

Aziraphale managed not to look back until he was in the car and they were pulling away, then seized with the sudden fear that something might go wrong, he twisted and caught a last glimpse of Crowley standing in the doorway in his pajamas, looking very small.

* * *

It was a long, silent drive to London. Aziraphale passed the time looking out the window and trying very hard not to think about how it felt to drive away from Crowley. His fingers tapped on his knees until the quiet rasp of skin on fabric annoyed even him and he was forced to stop.

Eventually, they arrived, pulling into a tiny car park on the edge of campus. PC Nayar turned off the car and reached around to the backseat, pulling up a small satchel.

“Do you remember your job?” he asked.

Aziraphale nodded and, when it seemed that was not enough, said, “Yes. Talk to Professor Avgerinós, be polite, don’t make him angry or suspicious. When he’s not paying attention, place the listening device somewhere inconspicuous.”

“Good.” Suraj pulled out a small black case and withdrew the little device he’d explained at the cottage. Aziraphale watched through a sort of far away detachment as he tested the battery and received and, seemingly pleased by those results, pressed it into Aziraphale’s hand. “Recordings from his office will be useful and the quickest way to make sure Crowley is free of them all–” Aziraphale nodded rapidly, but Suraj wasn’t finished, “However, they do us no good at all if you’re in danger.”

“Professor Avgerinós–”

“You don’t know anything about him, Mr. Fell.”

He knew that was true, but still had a hard time reconciling the snidely cutting astronomy professor with the apparently dangerous head of an organized crime syndicate.

“Right,” he said faintly, “Of course.”

PC Nayar studied him for a long moment. “Are you up to this? I should have asked away from Crowley before, I wasn’t thinking. You absolutely do not need to do this if you’re uncomfortable or–”

“No!” Aziraphale took a deep breath and forcibly willed his fingers to be still against his thigh. “I mean, no, I want to do this. I need to.” He’d been alone with the professor so many times this year, the thought that any of those might have been on the same day he gave an order that ended in Crowley hurt or in danger or hating himself just that much more… Aziraphale had to make amends for being so damned blind.

“If you’re sure…” Aziraphale nodded and PC Nayar continued, “We have officers nearby and they’ll be there as soon as you give the word.”

Another nod.

The bell tower at the center of campus began to toll, marking the start of Professor Avgerinós’ office hours. Aziraphale steeled himself.

The walk to the Professor’s office felt both longer than the drive to London and shorter than the blink of an eye. It seemed he took only a single breath and then Professor Avgerinós was calling for him to come in.

Aziraphale sat down in the chair not currently covered in papers and journals. He opened his mouth to speak, but Professor Avgerinós held up one finger, silencing him and continuing to tap away at his computer.

While he waited, Aziraphale tried very hard not to think about anything at all, worried if he did he’d lose his nerve or give himself away. Finally, the professor clicked his mouse and tapped the power button on the computer monitor, swiveling his chair to face Aziraphale fully.

“Mister Fell,” he said with a broad smile. “Are you here to beg for your grade?”

Aziraphale had passed, in large part because he’d been able to picture Crowley’s face as he explained everything to him, and though the grade was not to his usual standards it was more than good enough for him.

“No, professor,” he said, “I believe all I needed to do was pass the course and then the astronomy department would agree to allow me the use of the documents.”

“Hmm, was _that_ the arrangement?”

“Yes.” It took everything in him for Aziraphale not to continue on with an apology or a compliment or something along those lines, but he couldn’t stand the thought of being more deferential than he had to be to this man.

Avgerinós studied him. “You really don’t care that you know nothing at all, do you? What must that be like?”

“Blissful, sir.” Aziraphale said and smiled.

“Your family must be so proud.”

Aziraphale thought of Crowley and the kiss he’d received despite the other man’s exhaustion and misery these last few weeks when his grade arrived. He thought of Eve’s congratulatory phone call and Haistwell’s strong hand on his shoulder and the lunch he had with Michael next month that she’d reached out to him to arrange.

“Yes,” he said even as he realized it was true, “They are.”

Avgerinós’ handsome face twisted in a scowl, but before he could respond his computer beeped. “A moment,” he snapped and turned on the monitor once more.

As soon as he was turned away Aziraphale cast his gaze about, looking frantically for someplace safe to drop the bug. The pile of papers? No he might clean those. The pencil cup? Definitely not, it would make a noise and might change the way it felt to use. The– Avgerinós turned back around.

“Where were we?”

“Ah, I believe you were asking after my family.” Aziraphale desperately did not want to be here anymore. The longer he looked at Avgerinós the more terrible things he connected to the man.

He… he hated him.

Aziraphale did not think he’d ever wished death on anyone before but he’d happily sit and watch as Avgerinós choked.

These thoughts (and the rising tension) were interrupted by a knock on the door. It opened and the student Aziraphale had seen a few times with Avgerinós, Li, he thought her name was, poked her head in.

“Professor!” She said excitedly, you just have to come see this! We finally managed to export the data from last week and– Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t realize you had someone in here.”

Avgerinós was already standing. “Mr. Fell was just here to thank myself and the astronomy department for our generosity and forbearance in tolerating his inadequacies. We’ve nothing else to talk about.” He took a few steps towards the door, clear expecting Aziraphale to follow.

He hadn’t hidden the bug yet. If you’d asked him a week ago how he might feel given this scenario, Aziraphale probably would have decided that the only appropriate response would be overwhelming panic. But, now, actually living it? It was as if he’d taken three steps to the right of his life. When he spoke, his words were cool and measured and his hands were steady as rocks.

“Of course,” he said, standing with a smile. He pulled his phone from his pocket as if to check the time and then, making a show of fumbling, dropped it to the floor and stumbled, kicking it under Avgerinós’ desk.

“And a bit clumsy too. What a prize,” Avgerinós muttered. “Li, we can talk out here while Mr. Fell gathers what remains of his dignity.” Then he was gone, the door snapping shut behind him.

Aziraphale knew he had only seconds. He hurried around to the other side of the desk and scooped up his phone, looking about as he did for a good hiding place. Finally, he spotted a little metal celestial globe. There was an obvious seam around the middle and when he pried with his fingernails it came apart with ease. He dropped the bug in and replaced the globe, carefully spinning it back around so it was in the same position it had been in and then darted for the door.

“Well,” he said, forcing a broad smile as he stepped out of the office and closed the door behind himself, “I’m so grateful for all your time and help this semester, Professor Avgerinós. My life would be poorer for the lack of it.” He would’ve never met Crowley, were it not for this awful man’s teaching, so he supposed he wasn’t even actually lying.

Avgerinós seemed thrown by his demeanor and Aziraphale decided that, short of getting to punch him, that was the best he was going to get. He nodded to both Avgerinós and Li, and walked away as quickly as he could without seeming suspicious.

As soon as he stepped from the building, Aziraphale pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the messaging app. His fingers had begun to shake a little, but he managed to type a message to PC Nayar telling him it was done, and then one to Eve.

[Monday 11:54 am] Hello. I’m done on campus. I can be there at half past, if you still needed the help?

[Eve Monday 11:55 am] Please. Is Crowley with you?

[Monday 11:55 am] No, we didn’t think that was a good idea.

[Eve Monday 11:56 am] Of course.

[Eve Monday 11:57 am] Please come by whenever. You’re always welcome.

* * *

Aziraphale had left with Suraj.

It took Crowley thirty steps to make a circuit of the kitchen and living room in the cottage; he hadn’t realized he was counting them until his fifth time passing through the cased opening but once it occurred to him he found he couldn’t stop. _Aziraphale had left with Suraj._ There was something fragile and shaking in his chest and it felt a little bit less like it was about to topple down the stairs and shatter when he was focused on how many steps were left in his path.

It should have been Crowley walking out the door.

It was always Crowley ~~being thrown~~ walking out.

He had experience with it. This was _his_ mess. Aziraphale shouldn’t–

It was on the eighth time around that he realized that his chest hurt past the broken rib and then that he’d not taken a breath in a while. Air rushed in and the pain spiked before receding back to a background buzz. It was dangerous. There was no doubt about that.

Aziraphale had run into fire for him and now this and Crowley wasn’t worth anything close to either of those. He knew it. His parents had known it.

Eve knew it.

He completed a ninth circle and now he couldn’t seem to stop breathing, each inhale coming faster than the last, leaving no time at all for the exhale before he was breathing in again. Another inhale, another aborted exhale, another, another, another, ano–

Soon he realized he was barely able to keep his feet, less walking and more staggering between solid objects as he tried to pull even one bare molecule of oxygen from the air. Plants didn’t have to deal with this shit, he thought half-hysterically, they could just _be_ and photosynthesize while they exuded or whatever.

Aziraphale had left the house, he hadn’t looked back

The black spots at the edges of his vision made it hard to think about how exactly chlorophyll worked. The next quarter-inhale he managed (between steps twenty-six and twenty-seven of his twelfth time around) smelled of smoke and Crowley knew, _knew,_ that nothing was burning because on their third day here, the first he’d been able to walk a bit, he and Aziraphale had hunted down every scrap of paper, every matchstick, every old container of oil and tossed them in the bin. He’d sat on the sofa watching as Aziraphale installed a smoke detector in every room in the cottage and two in the kitchen for good measure. They’d both breathed a little easier then and Crowley thought (hoped) that was the end of it.

But now the cottage smelled like smoke and there were black spots at the edges of Crowley’s vision and he desperately did not want to see the look he knew he’d see on Aziraphale’s face if he returned from London to find Crowley passed on the floor. So, on the fifteenth step of his fourteenth circuit, Crowley broke from the path and stumbled his way to the backdoor.

As soon as he was outside the constant breeze swept away the imaginary particles of smoke (they seemed more real to him than he knew they should, but that was probably because it still felt like his skin was caked in ash sometimes).

Crowley stood in the doorway, arms wrapped tightly around his waist, and breathed. The air was humid and warm and smelled like rain in a heady way he’d not known was possible before they came here. It chased the smoke from his lungs better than anything else he’d discovered so far. For a moment he thought about going back inside, he could open all the windows and leave the backdoor flung wide and probably he’d be okay. But he knew he’d also spend the entire time until Aziraphale returned fighting back the clinging-pitch of panic that wanted to ignite his mind.

He could go back in the house and do that, or… Crowley looked around the back garden. It was larger than what he was used to seeing in London. Used to– Eve would tell him to deliver the orders to their wealthier clientele and he’d get glimpses of the tiny patches of greenery they’d managed to secure in the city. He used to be so jealous of them.

The garden at the cottage was unkempt at best and a fucking disaster at worst. A curl of rage unfurled in his chest because the plants at the garden center knew better than to look like this, but he forced it back. He had a terrible feeling that if he indulged in that rage now he’d never stop screaming and he really was too tired for that. These plants didn’t know any better he told himself, he just had to show them. It would be a good way of thanking Aziraphale’s advisor for letting them use this place.

The awful feeling in him settled just a bit at that thought, at having a goal. He wouldn’t turn it into a mausoleum, all sculpted and perfect. He’d always hated those sorts of gardens. Plants should grow in the places that were best for them (so long as they didn’t slack off in doing so).

The cottage was on the very edge of town, butted right up against the nature preserve. The back wall of the cottage itself formed one side, the brickwork butting up against rough hewn stone walls that swept out to the left and right for a short ways before making sharp ninety-degree turns and lumbering down the slope towards the thicket at the back that surrounded a small stream. There was no back wall, instead the thicket formed a natural barrier of thorns and tangled vines. In the very center of it there was a cleared space with an iron gate with an arch over it that the vines had been encouraged to cling to. Other than that gate, it seemed no attempt had been made at all to bring order; mint had escaped from the raised beds and was overtaking the entire right side even as the roses on the left seemed to be racing to see which could grow the tallest (and thus weakest). Crowley had never liked the sculpted look, but this was ridiculous.

It was only when he stepped into the grass that Crowley remembered he wasn’t wearing shoes. His feet were mostly healed, Aziraphale’s strict refusal to miss even one application of the ointment had seen to that, but they were still tender. He shifted his weight back and forth, judging. The grass was cool and the soil beneath was rough, just enough to sting a bit against the new skin.

Crowley did not smile, those still felt awfully hard to find, but he did appreciate the sensation. The threat of the Baratrum coming here and ruining what meagre amounts of peace he eked out were still there, and all the things they could do to him with their knives and brass knuckles and all the things they might do to Aziraphale if they caught him here too, but those thoughts felt very far away when the soil was pressed between his toes.

He made his way across the garden to the small shed in the far back corner. It looked as if it had once been painted a bright, sunshine yellow but was so faded now that it just looked like an especially dingy cream.

“Mood,” he muttered as he swung the door open. He leaned to the side to let a little light in and then froze because the shed was filled with what looked to be hundreds of dusty wine bottles, all stacked neatly and glinting in the sun.

“What the fuck?” He plucked one from the top of the nearest pile and inspected it. The glass was slightly wavering and much thicker than he’d expected. These weren’t new by any stretch of the imagination. “Why are academics so goddamn weird?” he muttered. “Just want a bloody–” At the very back he spotted a small trowel and pair of heavy duty working gloves. They were leather with rougher patches on the fingers and thumb for grip and all he could think was that the pair Eve had bought him all those years ago right after he arrived were lightyears better, for all that they’d been patched more times than he could count.

Maybe whoever Eve hired to help her out would wear them now.

He picked up the gloves and trowel and left the shed behind.

The mint was a job for another day, but the rose bushes? Those he could do something about.

* * *

By the time Crowley looked up again, the sun was high in the sky. The shaking, burning anxiety had been banked to mere coals by the physical labor; he hadn’t done more than shuffle between the bed and couch for the last month and he felt more than a little wobbly. There was a hose off the back of the house and he paused long enough to turn it on and take a long draw before collapsing on his ass in the dirt between the rose bushes.

His feet hurt quite a bit more than the mild sting from when he’d first stepped outside and now his shoulders and forearms had joined their protest. With a protracted groan he fell backwards so the shadows from the bushes would fall across his torso and wiggled a bit further into the soil. He’d spent a long while attacking it with the trowel after trimming back the leggy sections of the bushes themselves and clearing the debris away so it was cool and damp around him.

As soon as he stopped moving the exhaustion that had been his constant companion for the last month stole back over him and he closed his eyes. He couldn’t hear anything but the gentle breeze through the greenery and the walls were high enough that no one could see him here.

Aziraphale had left with Suraj, but maybe he’d be coming back.

Eventually, warm and physically worn out, he dozed.

Every so often he’d jerk awake, startled by a car driving by or a bug buzzing past, but managed to remain comfortably dozing for the rest of the afternoon. As the sun began to dip the cool soil grew uncomfortable enough that he began to sleepily debate dragging himself back inside and curling up on the couch with the heaviest throw they had.

He was just gathering his motivation to sit up when he heard a quiet rasp to his left. He looked over and it felt like every molecule in his body froze, locked in place as a tiny grass snake emerged from the shadows.

“Hi there,” Crowley rasped out. The little snake paused, lifting its head and flicking its tongue towards him. It was beautiful, all dark green with a paler belly and a bright yellow collar. “Dapper little guy, aren’t you?”

Another little tongue flick and Crowley had to resist the urge to do it back the way he had with Junior.

“Aziraphale would like you,” he told it, “He wears a bowtie sometimes and looks a right dork, so you two would look like a pair.”

The snake seemed to decide he wasn’t a threat continued on its way, twining around the disturbed clumps of dirt and towards the base of the wall.

Crowley watched it go and it was only when he moved his head a little to keep one eye on it that he realized he was crying. “Shit,” he muttered, sniffing. He scrubbed at his eyes. “Get it together, Crowley.”

Perhaps, if he asked Aziraphale to ask for him, the professor would let him put in a small pond in the back corner. It would look nice, a good visual balance for the shed, and probably attract all sorts of frogs and toads.

Grass snakes liked those. Not that that was why he wanted to ask. The garden was a disgrace and he couldn’t be seen living around something so embarrassing.

With that thought in mind, he finally managed to sit up. The sun had dipped low, but it was still on the border of afternoon and early evening. Aziraphale probably wouldn’t be back for a while yet. Perhaps there was time to start in on the mint after all. It as going to take bloody years to-

A distant roar on the road caused him to whip his head around. He surged to his feet, exhaustion forgotten.

That was the Bentley.

Crowley smiled.

* * *

“Hello there!” Aziraphale didn’t like to think of himself as high strung, but the sudden voice nearly made him leave his skin behind. “Oh! I’m sorry about that.” He turned to see an older woman wearing a bright blue shawl and fuzzy slippers standing at the end of the drive beside their own.

“I was hoping to catch you,” she said and tapped the side of her nose in a significant manner, as if he was meant to understand more in her words.

“Uh, thank you?” Then, as if on a thirty second delay, his manners kicked in. He dropped the trash into the bin and wiped his hand off on his trousers. “Oh, do excuse me. Terribly sorry, I don’t know where my manners are. How do you do, Ms Potts?” She made a disapproving noise and he laughed. “Ah, another apology then. It's a pleasure to see you again, Marjorie.”

“Better,” she smiled at him, “You didn’t even flinch that time. We’ll have you greeting old ladies like old friends sooner than you think. It’s a requirement for living in Tadfield you know. We outnumber you youngsters three to one.”

He laughed. “Well, with you as a teacher, how could I do anything but learn? Oh! I still have your plate, I’ll bring it down later.” They’d had a bit of a weekly tea appointment after Aziraphale met her towards the end of their first full week in the cottage.

She waved him off. “Another lesson then; us old ladies like having excuses to harass the handsome Mr. Next-Door. How else will I be the talk of the town unless you’re spotted bringing me gifts?” Then her smile faded a bit as she looked back towards the cottage. “How is your young man doing?”

Aziraphale thought of the smile Crowley had greeted him with when he returned from London, of the eager kiss that had followed. Aziraphale told him everything, every word Professo– Lucien had said and everything he’d done in return and reassured him that they were safe, that Crowley was finally, _finally,_ free of them all. Crowley had cried but he also hadn’t stopped smiling and they’d soon decided dinner was overrated because it required moving from the couch and neither could seem to stop touching the other.

Even now, nearly a full day later, Aziraphale could still taste Crowley on his lips.

“Better, I think,” Aziraphale told her, trying to ignore the way he must be blushing. He stepped to the side a bit so he stood at her side. “Well, no, he’s still, ah, processing everything. But, he did a bit of work in the garden yesterday.”

“That’s–”

Whatever she said then was lost to him as an ambulance raced by, lights flashing and sirens on full blast, overwhelming everything else. Smoke and light and flame and he needed to get to Crowley, it was the only thing that mattered. Crowley would die if he couldn’t– A low moan escaped him as his legs shook and nearly gave out on him.

“–all okay, probably just a farmer a little too lost in the bottle to gauge the distance between ladder rungs. They didn’t stop here, you’re fine, just breathe Aziraphale, that’s good, there’s a good boy.”

When he finally managed to open his eyes again, he was leaning against the low wall that divided their properties and Marjorie’s hand was on his elbow.

“Are you here again?” she asked. He liked the way she asked that; like it would be totally alright if he said ‘no, not yet’. It made it a lot easier to nod.

Aziraphale scrubbed one hand down his face, pausing for a moment to press on his eyes, trying to force back the tears that threatened.

“I’m sorry about that,” he whispered, “It’s, ah,” he tried to find a polite way to phrase things but felt as if all social nicety had been swept away by the siren. “It’s been a shit month.” Then, realizing exactly what he'd said, "I'm sorry."

Marjorie studied him for a long moment, one neon green nail tapping at her lower lip thoughtfully, before she spoke. “I’d be more than happy to help.”

Aziraphale shook his head immediately. It already felt like there were too many people trying to help them and, really, now that he’d helped with the listening device, there wasn’t much else to be done besides wait (and possibly actually spend a bit of time working on his thesis).

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to impose,” he said. “We’re handling things.”

“Bullshit,” Marjorie said and Aziraphale jumped again. “You can’t talk to him because you’re afraid of showing him how hurt you are and making him feel guilty and he’s not talking to you at all, Lord only knows why, I’ve not met your young man to comment. You’re alone out here except for each other and you’re not sure how much longer you can keep smiling at him and crying in the kitchen after he falls asleep.”

Aziraphale stared. His mouth opened and then closed and then opened again. Eventually he managed to scrape together the wherewithal to say, very quietly, “The living room.”

“What was that?”

He cleared his throat. “The living room. The kitchen is beneath the bedroom and I don’t want to wake Crowley.”

She nodded. “I’m not offering to help with whatever trouble you two are running from. Before I retired I was a trauma counsellor.”

Aziraphale wasn’t sure why, but that surprised him. It must have shown on his face because she laughed.

“Before that, I was a sex worker. But I think one set of job experiences is of more interest to you than the other.”

The matter of fact way she said it soothed him and he found himself chuckling. “Yes, I rather think so.”

They stood in companionable silence for a moment before Marjorie spoke again, “So, how about you come around for tea tomorrow and we can chat.”

“Ah, would this be a social call or-?”

“Whatever you want it to be. We can gossip about the Americans who’ve just bought the manor house on the other side of town or we can talk about what you need out of therapy.”

Marjorie was warm and kind and her jokes were dirty without making him feel uncomfortable and he’d found himself greatly enjoying their weekly tea. He’d already shared so many things he never thought he’d tell anyone save Crowley and it was easy to picture himself sharing more.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, “As therapy. I- I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We just wanted to to thank you all again, your response every chapter has made this such a joy to write, even for chapter like this one that ended up hitting home in a lot more ways than either of us expected.


	23. Of Summer Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warning for discussion of parental abandonment, but nothing detailed enough to need a skip. Description of anxiety attacks and some techniques to deal with them. 
> 
> Mildly steamy situations contained herein.

_** Mid-June ** _

Crowley loved sleep, there was something to be said for conking out unconscious for hours at a time, dead to the world and utterly oblivious to all the goings-on of life. This was especially true on days the pain flared up more than normal. If anyone had asked Crowley his favorite part of sleep, he'd have said it was that moment just before falling under when the world spun and eyelids were anchored down with exhaustion in a warm bed covered in blankets.

These days, though, his favorite part of sleeping was the waking up. Aziraphale was inevitably in their bed, no matter the time he actually woke, usually still in sleep wear, and with some part of him touching Crowley. The gentle brush of fingers against the back of his neck or press of a hip to the curve of his spine made him feel safe.

Aziraphale was warm underneath Crowley's arms, laying on his back with Crowley snoring on his shoulder. Crowley’s own arms laid across Aziraphale like an iron bar, heavy and confining surely. It was always humbling, in a way, that Aziraphale stayed like this—not always this position, sometimes he was sitting up and reading with Crowley's head in his lap instead or shoved up against a thigh, sometimes he cuddled Crowley back—especially when the man rarely managed sleep as it was due to his insomnia. Crowley never felt so loved as he did upon waking in the morning to Aziraphale's presence.

"Smrfg?" Crowley grumbled and yawned, "Aziraphale?"

"Yes, my dear?" Aziraphale turned his face to Crowley and wrapped his arm just a bit firmer around Crowley's shoulders, tugging him impossibly closer and setting a riot of butterflies free in his stomach.

"Love you, y'know?"

"Of course," Aziraphale smiled back at him, brighter than the sunrise, "I love you, too." He leaned in and gently pressed his lips to Crowley's, entirely unconcerned with morning breath or any other side effects of waking, drawing a soft, breathy groan from Crowley when instead of remaining chaste he felt tongue at the seam of his lips.

"Angel," Crowley whispered against Aziraphale's lips, suddenly needy, his skin blazing against even the softest touches of Aziraphale's fingers. Aziraphale took the opportunity to swipe his tongue into Crowley’s mouth before withdrawing to suck on his lower lip.

"Hmm?" The hum vibrated through what felt like the entirety of Crowley’s being, setting his nerves to singing and making him ache all over.

"Angel, please," Crowley murmured. He pressed his hips against the firmness of Aziraphale's thigh. "Love you, want you."

Aziraphale hummed again, suddenly _very_ interested. His eyes were sharp on Crowley, raking down his torso until they reached the quilt and back up, his gaze heavy enough to be felt. "Oh, Crowley, my Crowley. I love you, my dear," he replied breathily, leaning up onto an elbow to kiss Crowley's sideburn tattoo in a way that turned the rabid butterflies in Crowley directly into restless static and molten gold.

Crowley groaned and turned his face for a kiss, straining upward towards the only sun he’d ever cared about, only to flump back onto the bed with a loud, annoyed groan as his phone began playing ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’. He closed his eyes and threw up a hand to cover his face.

"You, ah," Aziraphale started, stilted and halting, "I think you should answer that, Crowley. Eve just wants to talk to you."

Crowley's mouth opened and he started to make a few noises, beginnings of words, before giving up and wagging his jaw uselessly only to growl in frustration. "I– no! No, Aziraphale, I just– you don't _get_ it, I can't– _ugh!_ " Crowley shot up and hit the end call button on his phone without letting it finish ringing through. At least that way there wouldn’t be another voicemail to delete without listening to. Or worse, maybe this would be the time she didn’t leave a voicemail at all.

"Now!" Crowley surged upward, startling Aziraphale badly enough that he fell back onto his pillow, allowing Crowley to loom over him with a smirk. "Where were we?" Without waiting for an answer, Crowley hiked his leg over Aziraphale's thighs and straddled his lap, lowering himself to lay chest to chest on top of Aziraphale and kiss him sweetly, but not without a considerable amount of heat behind it.

"C'mon, angel," Crowley whispered his temptations, "I feel good today, let me share my good mood. _Please?_ "

"Now _that's_ dirty pool," Aziraphale chuckled a quiet laugh with a smile, and Crowley smiled back, relieved he wouldn't prod about Eve's calls any further.

For now at least.

Crowley shifted to tighten his knees around Aziraphale's sides and grinned wide at the breathy sigh he'd pulled from his love below him. He relished the feeling, Aziraphale solid and strong between his thighs, his hands already coming up to clutch at Crowley’s ass, before taking his lips once more in a searing kiss, recapturing the previous electric mood.

For the first time in a while, it felt like this wasn't fated to end.

* * *

The shower steamed behind him and Aziraphale turned with a toothbrush in hand to knock lightly on the tile by the curtain. Crowley stuck his hand out, dripping wet and wiggling, prompting a laugh from Aziraphale as he handed over the toothbrush with exactly a pea-sized amount of paste—as Crowley's fussiness demanded, though he'd laugh to hear Aziraphale, of all people, call it _fussiness_ —and returned to the sink to go through his own morning ablutions.

Once Crowley was out of the shower, his skin warm and pink and a towel wrapped around his waist, Aziraphale kissed him once more with minty breath and led him to sit on the toilet. He withdrew the jar of scar cream from the medicine cabinet. It was mostly gone at this point, and perhaps Crowley didn't really need it anymore exactly, but it was something _real_ Aziraphale could do to help him, even if it was small and didn't seem like much. The physicality of it, of manhandling Crowley just a little even (or perhaps especially) on days Crowley barely tolerated it, soothed something in Aziraphale that fretted and worried and felt like he wasn't enough to help, to be worthwhile.

Miss Potts, _Marjorie,_ said that was something to work on, that little tasks like this were alright, but to keep from putting his worth into them, and Aziraphale really was trying. But in the meantime? It was a bit of a ritual, for just the two of them, to shower or bathe or even just brush their teeth and wash their face—whatever Crowley could manage to get through that morning—and then for Aziraphale to sit Crowley down in the bathroom or in the bedroom and carefully slather the scar cream over his hands and forearms where they'd been burnt the worst, as well as the soles and sides of his feet. He'd rub in the cream until there was nothing left but the faintly greasy feeling of medical moisturizer on Crowley's skin, massaged into his hands and feet with all the love Aziraphale could manage.

Most days, the scars were negligible, they didn't cause much trouble past the initial healing and making sure to carefully moisturize and stretch the area so it didn't heal tight and constricting. Some days there were phantom pains brought on by either memory of the fire or the worry Crowley worked himself up into about them healing incorrectly and restricting his dexterity and movement. Those days, Aziraphale spent extra time on them, he massaged deep into the hands as far as he dared until the cream was gone and then rubbed in more, and then did the same for Crowley's feet.

Crowley might not necessarily need this anymore, the scars looked to be healing and Crowley hadn’t mentioned them very often so hopefully they didn't hurt, but the habit of it was comforting, grounding.

"How are you feeling, my dear?" Aziraphale asked gently, raising one of Crowley's hands to kiss his knuckles.

"Alright," Crowley replied, leaning down with a certain amount of ease that released some of the iron bands about Aziraphale's chest in relief, and kissed the corner of Aziraphale's mouth with a small smile, "Doin' absolutely fine today, I think."

"Oh!" Aziraphale stood up and shimmied a little in happiness. "Then would you like to join myself and Anathema shopping? She's coming down to visit and there's a few places that have piqued both our interests…"

"That bookshop, yeah? With the crystals and occult stuff?" Crowley let Aziraphale pull him up to stand, only to lean against him, and Aziraphale happily wrapped his arms around Crowley's waist and nuzzled against the side of his head, burying his nose in still-damp, clean-smelling hair with a contented smile.

"Yes, the very same."

"Ah…," Crowley hummed and shifted back and forth in Aziraphale's arms, causing him to pull back and look at Crowley worriedly.

"What's wrong? You don't have to go if you don't want, I'm perfectly alright–"

"No, no. I mean, it's not that I don't _want_ to, it's just… I kinda told Marjorie that I'd help with her trees. They're a damn _mess_ angel, I can see it from here!" Crowley's gaze was firmly down towards his chest and his smile spoke of sheepishness now, but Aziraphale couldn't be upset in the slightest. Not that he'd particularly been expecting Crowley to want to come at all, let alone also be in the mood and condition to do so…

"I'm very proud of you, my love," Aziraphale said instead of anything else. There was a point, and one they'd passed some time ago it seemed, where apologies and backtracking on their words and explaining and re-explaining everything they meant by every turn of phrase just… wasn't useful anymore. Born of a worry they'd be misinterpreted when no such misinterpretation existed, pounded into the both of them as a habit by living or growing up around people who'd take the opportunity to deliberately misconstrue.

"S'just weeding, angel," Crowley groaned and his forehead pressed down onto Aziraphale's shoulder.

"Of course, dear," Aziraphale said, "Just weeding, or pruning some of the unnecessary too?"

Crowley didn't answer with anything resembling human words, but Aziraphale cooed back and stroked his fingers through drying hair, carefully detangling the length of it, like he'd understood anyway. And, well, he did.

They finished getting dressed and ready for the day separately and met back at the top of the stairs of the cottage, Aziraphale descending first as a silent precaution, and Crowley following without any sort of incident. Tension left Aziraphale's lungs where it had gripped his breath tightly at the good omen for the day, nothing's gone wrong so early or turned anything sour, and that was the biggest hurdle half of the time it seemed.

Aziraphale tentatively brushed the back of his hand against Crowley's as they walked out the front door. A bid for attention, Marjorie had called it, as they built up a frame for a healthier relationship. Even if it required him caretaking to a certain degree, there were still boundaries that needed to be enforced and he couldn't keep dragging himself down and putting Crowley up on this pedestal of disability, no matter how temporary.

It had been… a difficult talk, that day, and Marjorie left him with quite a bit to think about on his own. Which, Aziraphale supposed, was the whole point of it. Crowley broke Aziraphale from his thoughts by threading his fingers through Aziraphale's, which caused his lips to turn up at the edges and an unbearable fondness to curl like wafting incense in his chest, filling him up until he was utterly saturated with it.

"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale murmured. And that was it, wasn't it? He was just… _happy_ , and there were no strings attached here to it. He had Crowley and they weren't perfect, no, but they were getting there. He had a little cottage in the countryside to live in, his doctorate was progressing, he was actively bettering himself as a person with quite a bit of effort and thought and self-reflection, and even had a _friend_ coming to visit him and go off to cater to their hobbies together simply for the sake of it!

Six months ago, and oh, wasn't that a heady thing to think that he'd only met Crowley after the new year, and his life had changed so much for the better. He'd even thought about reaching out to Michael, now that he'd been able to look back on their family's interactions and picked out something that didn't quite match up with what he'd always thought… But that was a thought for another day.

He'd walked with Crowley to the edge of the cottage property and a bit down the road to where the trail beside the dirt road turned off towards Marjorie's home. They slowed to a stop gradually and Crowley was looking over in their neighbor's direction, mouth pulled taut and thin with a bit of a wrinkle between his brows.

"Alright, my dearest?" Aziraphale asked, after a few moments once it was clear Crowley was hesitating.

"I– yeah, yeah, 's fine right?" Crowley mumbled and tapped the tip of the toe of his right shoe on the ground right behind his left foot then shifted to do the same on the other side.

"You don't have to go…" Aziraphale said softly after a few more seconds of Crowley's nervous shuffling.

"No, 's alright. Just… it's just weeding, yeah?" Aziraphale glanced up at Crowley from the corner of his eyes and squeezed his hand. Three times. And what a lovely shock that had been, to learn the meaning behind it.

 _I–_ squeeze. _Love–_ squeeze. _You–_ squeeze. Since Crowley told him that's what it meant, it had quickly become Aziraphale's _favorite_ bid and reassurance.

"Of course, just weeding. Whatever you want it to be." Aziraphale turned his face up just enough to press a gentle kiss to Crowley's cheek. "Just because I talk to her in a… semi-professional capacity, doesn't mean you've got to. And you said it yourself, you've been itching to get at her trees for a while, hm? Can see them from the cottage, wasn't it?"

"Yeah…" Crowley muttered and sighed dramatically, his shoulders loosening from where they'd gradually tensed. "Got my gloves an' all." Aziraphale tamped down on his smile, shifting it into something he was sure Crowley would call coy if he weren't so worried and let the warm, happy feeling in his chest like sunshine solidify into a powerful thing that might have shone from him if he were any less solid.

"I'm proud of you." Aziraphale said after a brief pause. Crowley made a humming noise in response, lilting up at the end in question.

"I am. You've been through a lot in the last few weeks, now I'm not saying I haven't either mind you, I'm not downplaying it all, but I _am_ proud of you. I love you very much, my dear, and I'm proud of you. Out of the house, working in gardens again, doing things you love and you're out of London. And–" Aziraphale paused to take a breath before he worked himself up into a… something. "And I'm proud of you, for all of that."

"Oh." Crowley whispered, angling his whole body to face Aziraphale, and the eyes over the tops of his sunglasses were wide and perhaps just a little watery. There was a whole world in that word, all sorts of things Aziraphale would never be able to pick apart without Crowley telling him what it was made up of.

Aziraphale simply kept his smile up, flicked his eyes up towards Marjorie's home, and squeezed Crowley's hand once more. With a long, deep breath and a sharp nod, Crowley let go of his hand and took a few steps away. They were halting at first, but quickly regained Crowley's usual swagger, and Aziraphale only just barely kept from fussing over him and how his hip must surely be hurting– but no, that was another thing he'd worked with Marjorie on. Crowley would know his own limits, and Aziraphale had to trust that he'd stick to them, or at least let Aziraphale know if he wanted help.

"Have fun!" Aziraphale shouted and waved, grinning at Crowley's wide smirk and the lazy salute he threw back over his shoulder. He was in fine form today, and there was so much hope in his chest Aziraphale felt like he could fly.

It would be a _lovely_ day today, he could feel it in his bones.

* * *

“Oh good, you came.” Marjorie smiled up at him from the lounger on the back porch. Crowley scowled at her.

“Said I would,” he muttered, already feeling a bit foolish being there at all. The woman stood and started pulling her curled back into a hair tie. She was wearing a pair of yoga pants with dirt on the knees and a ratty t-shirt advertising Queen’s Night at the Opera Tour. “Uh...”

She caught him looking at her outfit and grinned. “What? Mr. Crowley, did you think I’d lured you over here under false pretenses?”

“Jus’ Crowley,” he said and then, “Yes. I thought– it’s just that you’ve been talking to Aziraphale and he seems– I mean. I don’t know. It’s helping?”

Marjorie crossed the porch to a small chest on the side. She reached in and pulled out a set of heavy duty leather gloves and two pairs of shears. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said with a smile. “He’s a good lad, your Aziraphale.” Crowley nodded because there was nothing else he could say. Aziraphale wasn’t just good, he was the best. Maybe the only truly Right thing in his life, and Crowley was happy to see that someone else understood that.

“What do my meetings with Aziraphale have to do with you?” Marjorie asked. She made her way down the porch steps to the stone path that wended its way through the garden back to where the small orchard began. “Come along.”

Crowley hurried to catch up.

“Well?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, finding the tiny difference in texture that told him where Junior’s tattoo began and then tracing his fingers along it the same way he had the snake. It wasn’t the same, but the familiar motion was still soothing.

“I dunno,” he muttered, “Nothing I guess. I just thought all this was, I don’t know, a story? To get me to come over so you could shrink my head.”

They reached the edge of the wood and Marjorie paused, looking up at him seriously. “Crowley,” she said when she’d caught his eye, “the cornerstone of therapy is that you trust your therapist. It’s why I was good at my job in London. The sex workers I helped knew I’d been one of them and trusted that I wouldn’t judge or call the police or anything else. Aziraphale is having success with me because he’s comfortable with me and trusts that I will not tell you or anyone else any details of our sessions,” she paused and chuckled, a bit self-deprecating, “Of course, the arrangement is a tad unorthodox, given that we’re also friends who socialize outside of our sessions. But, well, I _am_ retired.”

“And is this–?”

Marjorie laughed. “It is if you want it to be. But, I did actually need help with the trees, so the choice is yours.”

Crowley thought about it. Aziraphale really had seemed… better. More settled. There was a desperate fear in his chest that Aziraphale would heal and be fine and Crowley would still be stuck in the burning garden center, screaming and tearing at the walls, desperate to save even the smallest scrap of memories for a woman who it turned out didn’t love him nearly as much as he loved her. How long could he expect Aziraphale to stick around if Crowley was always in the same place and he was moving forward?

He jumped when he felt Marjorie press the gloves and shears into his hands.

“Let’s work on the garden a bit, hm?” she suggested. “See what we can dig up.”

Crowley nodded. Plants he could do. Even when nothing else was fitting right and he felt most of the way to collapsing in a tangle of worries and half-rotted bones, he could still manage plants.

Marjorie pointed out the spots she thought needed the most attention and listened carefully as Crowley shook his head and explained, no, those weren’t the problems. Sure, they were the ugliest bits, but the trees were healthy and would produce good fruit come autumn. The real danger lay in the few that looked a bit too clean, a bit too perfect, at the center of the orchard. Even from across the wall that separated their gardens Crowley had been able to spot the way their branches were just a bit too bare, their bark on the wrong side of rough.

When he explained this, expecting that Marjorie would ignore him or argue back, he was surprised to find that she nodded seriously and then asked what could be done. More surprisingly, she watched as he showed her how to prune back the malformed bits and then wandered off to work on another tree.

For the entirety of the hour that they’d agreed upon Crowley kept expecting Marjorie to start asking him how he felt about everything that had happened. Why was he the way he was? Couldn’t he just be normal? Did he have to also be traumatized and anxious and hate himself and, and, and—

But, she never did.

Every so often Marjorie would say his name and point out some squirrel or bird that had approached them. Each time he thought that would be it, that would be when the questions started. And each time he was left without resolution to the strange tension that had begun to build in his chest.

Finally, as the hour drew to a close, Marjorie stood up and brushed off her hands.

“Well, I think that’s noon,” she said with a smile. “You’re welcome to stay, of course, but I need to go clean up.”

Crowley looked up from the tree he’d been working on, blinking at her in confusion.

That– That couldn’t be it?

“Really?” he asked before he thought better of it. “We’re… done?”

Marjorie laughed. “Of course not, there’s far too much left. You can come back tomorrow.”

Crowley stared at her.

“What?”

She nodded. “Yes, I think the same time works for you, if you’re free?”

“Nowhere else to be,” Crowley said, almost absently.

“Perfect. Bring your gloves, those are far too big for you.”

He stood. “Aren’t you going to, I don’t know, tell me what’s the matter with me? Ask me questions? _Anything_?”

She smiled at Crowley, but did not stop walking towards the house, forcing him to follow along. “Do you want me to do that? Would it help you to hear all the technical terms for the ways you’re hurting?”

The very idea made his hands and feet ache. No. He didn’t want that. Crowley shook his head.

“Perfect, because I hate doing that. You’ve got a soul in there,” she tapped his chest with one bright orange fingernail. “It’s hurting right now and I don’t think any fancy words are going to make it feel better.”

Crowley stared at her.

That afternoon, when Aziraphale and Anathema called to ask if he wanted to join them in town for dinner at the pub, he agreed. The look of pride on Aziraphale’s face worked wonders in soothing the unsettled feelings left over from that morning. It was a nice evening, Crowley hadn’t officially met Anathema before and laughed until he cried when she described how she and Aziraphale had met (“Really,” Aziraphale had sniffed, “I was in shock over how pushy she was being! Telling me, of all people, which dessert to buy!”).

That night Crowley tugged Aziraphale down on top of him and whispered how lucky he was, how stupidly, wildly fortunate he’d gotten, into the soft places Aziraphale usually hid away.

The next day, at exactly noon, Crowley stood outside of Marjorie’s garden gate.

That day he found his tongue a bit looser and talked a bit about why apple trees were right bastards and deserved whatever rot came their way. Marjorie laughed with him and still asked no questions.

Nor did she the second day, or even the third, and rather quickly Crowley quite forgot he was meant to be having therapy, and simply thought of it as helping a friend out with her completely tragic orchard.

* * *

" _Ugh_ , Marjorie!" Crowley scoffed over Marjorie's shoulder from where he looked over on her phone with pictures of the tree last autumn when it had borne fruit.

"Yes, dearie?" Marjorie laughed, "Did you figure out what was wrong with my apple tree?"

"Yeah, they're useless! Can't believe it took you _this long_ to get me to look at 'em," Crowley griped, "Crabapples these are. What'd you do, just shove it in the ground?!" He rolled his eyes at her so dramatically she had to have known he'd done it even behind his glasses.

"Was I meant to do it any other way?" She raised an eyebrow at Crowley and he grimaced, chastised well enough. "That's how most things grow, from seeds to the ground, hm?"

Crowley waved his hands a bit, searching for words, and sighed. Dramatically, of course. It was nice, though he'd never admit it, talking with her. It was almost like talking with Eve but, well… there wasn't anything owed there. No history between them, no rent, no need to keep her safe, nothing like that.

It was—

Well, it _was_. And that's all it'd needed to be. They didn't owe each other anything, Crowley could just leave any time he pleased, and had on the second day and Marjorie didn’t seem to have held it against him. Infinitely patient in ways that no one else had ever been around him.

"Yeah well, apples, ya see, they're… hard to do. Sorta. These days they're all clones, yanno? Genetically all the apples of the same variety are probably all more or less the same, even that you get in stores. So ya gotta get rootstock, which is what you can get by planting an apple just fine, and then you graft on a bud from an actual tree producing good apples, yeah?" Crowley muttered and looked up at the tree, it wasn't all that old, could maybe graft on a branch or two over the winter and see how it held up in the spring.

"You said this was its first fruit, right?" Crowley asked and scratched at his cheek, not wanting to look at Marjorie. "We could trim it down, I think, could even salvage it to bush-growth if you like, so you don't ever have to climb it one you get good fruit again…"

Marjorie nodded, "Yes, I wasn't expecting much from it's first you know, I'm not so silly as all that. Everyone's a bit wobbly and over eager for their first time, and that's perfectly alright, of course, but _crabapples_ really?"

Crowley laughed, bright and loud and from somewhere in his chest like he'd not laughed in what felt like just about forever. "Yeah, Marj, crabapples."

"Crowley!" Marjorie laughed as well, "You know very well that's not my name!"

"Yeah, yeah, Miss Potts." Crowley teased and plucked a pair of sheers from the waist apron that was more of an easy access tool belt than a proper apron. "C'mon, if you wanna learn, I can teach you how to prune for bush-growth out rather than have it grow big and up. And ya can practice with making T-cuts for grafting if ya want…"

"Oh alright then, dearie, might be good to know for when I get my next crabapple tree." Marjorie smiled and stepped up onto the stool at Crowley's direction so she could watch how he pruned the tree from over his shoulder without him needing to crunch himself down.

"Alright, so Eve actually taught me how to do this, you're gonna wanna, when you're pruning the growth you wanna keep, just above three 'r four buds. These bits here are all buds and might sprout off branches in the future, not all 'f 'em do that, 'course, so you gotta leave a handful of 'em. If you go at an angle like this, lay yer shears against the branch, so it doesn't grow back towards itself, right? We're not gonna be able to get rid of all of this at once, 'f course, just 25 per-cent max every spring to keep it healthy, but yeah. And–"

On the third day in Marjorie's orchard, Crowley oversaw the growth of the tree yielding fruit and had a surprisingly good time talking about the garden work he'd done before, volunteering the information Marjorie never asked about.

* * *

“So, there I am, soaked to the bone and probably lookin’ like a drowned rat,” Crowley cackled, “and the customer is sopping and the ground is pure mud. I was convinced that was it, I was gone. There was no way I survived the next twenty minutes, not when I’d just lost us a thousand pound sale and who knows how much more when the customer told all his posh friends about the utter fuckin’ disaster of an assistant Eve had hired.”

Marjorie’s laugh was a bit raspy, Crowley thought she’d probably smoked in her youth, though he knew she didn’t now. It was nothing like Eve’s or Aziraphale’s and Crowley was discovering that he maybe had a bit of a talent for telling stories because she was always laughing when he wanted her to, always appreciative of the twists and turns the tales took. It made his chest feel simultaneously very tight and as if he might float away.

“What happened?” She asked, wiping at her eyes. It was raining, so they’d given up the pretense of working outside. Marjorie instead insisted that he stay and help her roll out the delicate pinwheels of dough she was planning to bring to her book club that afternoon.

Crowley waved one floured hand, “Oh, he swore never to come back and then realized we were the only ones who’d import the _special_ soil he thought he needed and was back the next month like nothing had happened.”

Marjorie snickered. “I had a few like that.” Her voice dropped an octave as she went on, “Oh, Madame Tracy, I only had two orgasms. That’s only one more than I paid for. I’ll never come back! Now, when are you free next week?”

Crowley barked a laugh. He’d visited Marjorie every day for the last week and only the previous day had she started peppering her own stories into his. He was fascinated by the tales of her work and found himself more and more willing to share his own stories if it meant she might reciprocate.

“Tosser,” he said. “You even threw in a gimme!”

“You just can’t please some,” Marjorie said with the sort of carefully straight face that meant she knew exactly where the innuendo was in her speech and was daring Crowley to react to it.

He refused to give her the satisfaction, instead focusing very hard on making sure the pinwheel’s twist was perfect. It turned out Marjorie actually had good taste in music and whenever they weren’t speaking the kitchen was filled with the slightly scratchy sounds of Freddie belting his heart out at Wembley, filtering in from the victrola in the living room.

“My mum hates Queen.” It slipped out before Crowley even realized he was thinking it.

Marjorie hummed and passed him the little pot of jam she’d been using to fill the centers.

“I– I don’t remember if dad liked them or not. He didn’t like music much at all, I don’t think.” The words feel as if they’ve been building for days and days, gathering in every expectant silence when Marjorie hadn’t asked questions. “And I can’t ask because he’s dead and she didn’t tell me. I had to find out at a goddamn dinner party.”

His hands were shaking too hard for the pastry. Crowley clenched them open and closed a few times before grabbing up the mixing bowls and crossing to the sink.

“They kicked me out,” he said after filling the sink with soapy water. “When I was sixteen. I–” he paused and a half-hysterical laugh bubbled up, “I got kicked out for a stupid teenage mistake.” He gestured to the tattoo at his temple, flinging soap bubbles onto his shirt. Freddie was saying _Take a back seat, hitch-hike, and take a long ride on my motorbike_ and suddenly it all felt like too much to continue to pretend to do anything else as the poison bled from him.

“I didn’t even want the tattoo,” he said, collapsing into one of the rickety chairs in the breakfast nook. “They made me. Or, convinced me? Fuck, I don’t even know. I hate the fucking thing. Leastways, I did, sometimes Aziraphale kisses it and that’s okay.” Marjorie continued to work on the pinwheels, her back to Crowley and her movements steady. Weirdly, that made it easier for the words to continue to flow. “I got home and they gave me thirty seconds to get whatever I could and get out, that’s it, no discussion, no chance to explain or ask for help. Just. Start counting, Anthony. Oh no, you’ve already wasted fifteen seconds, gotta hurry or you’ll have nothing at all.”

He pauses and sniffs, wiping at his nose in a desperate attempt to conceal the fact that he’s crying.

“I know I wasn’t the best kid, a damn handful really, but shit, I don’t think I was that bad.”

Marjorie turned around then, hands on her hips. “Your mum sounds like a right cunt.”

That startled a laugh out of Crowley. “Yeah,” he agreed, “she really is.”

* * *

Crowley slept terribly that night, caught between feeling too restless to settle and exhausted beyond measure. As soon as it was reasonable to do so, he crawled from the bed and bid Aziraphale a sleepy farewell before dressing in an old pair of jeans from his go-bag and a sweater of Aziraphale’s that Anathema had brought from his flat and slipping out into the early morning fog.

Marjorie met him at her front door, still dressed in her robe and slippers but holding two steaming cups and a smile. For the first time since he’d met her, she wasn’t wearing makeup.

“Hello, dearie,” she said. She held out one of the cups to him and he drank deeply, pleased that she’d remembered he didn’t like tea and found something approximating coffee for him.

“Mornin’,” Crowley muttered into the cup. “Sorry to, uh, I mean…” He trailed off, unsure how to even classify this visit.

The previous day he’d left at his usual time and joined Aziraphale in the tiny second bedroom-cum-office. Aziraphale was working his way through an incredibly dense stack of books as he put his finishing touches on his thesis and Crowley had sprawled across the little sleeper sofa, his legs stretched out so his feet could sit on Aziraphale’s lap. The other man rested one hand on Crowley’s left ankle and absently rubbed gentle circles around the bone that protruded there as he worked. It was soothing and calm and helped Crowley shove everything back away long enough to get through the day and night.

But, by the time morning rolled around he realized that he wanted to talk. There were so many things he’d never told anyone, so many poisonous words he wanted to lance from himself. He’d never burden Aziraphale with them all, couldn’t stand the idea that the other man might carry even one more thing for Crowley.

So, he went to Marjorie.

Who’d clearly been expecting him.

“You’re good at this,” he said in realization as they settled in the living room. It was the first time there hadn’t been a distraction and Crowley felt briefly panicked at the idea that this might suddenly turn into the sort of therapy he’d feared on that first day. Then, Marjorie picked up a basket of yarn and needles. She took a bright blue metal hook and a skein of cream-colored yarn and handed them to Crowley.

“Do you know how to crochet?”

He blinked, looking between her and the items in his hands.

“Uh, do I look like I know how to crochet?”

She lifted one eyebrow at him. “You’re living in a cottage in a tiny village with your academic boyfriend and wearing his sweater as you visit your elderly neighbor for tea before the sun’s even up. What part of that doesn’t say ‘I crochet hats for stray cats’ to you?”

“You’re not elderly,” was the only thing he could say to that.

She waved him off and rapidly demonstrated how to start a scarf. Crowley’s fingers felt stiff. In slipping out before Aziraphale woke he’d skipped their morning ritual of scar cream and the skin felt and warm all over. But, the motions were easy enough and soon he found a rhythm.

“I take it you had a rough night?” It was the first time she’d really asked him a question, Crowley realized, and it wasn’t even a real one. He could grunt or nod or any number of other things if he wanted and he knew that she’d accept it.

That knowledge gave him the strength to say, “Yeah.”

Another few stitches, taking the time to carefully place the needle between each loop. And then, the words began to flow. It felt as if everything he hadn’t said for the last ten years had been dammed up inside of him and the little crack yesterday had nothing on the flood now.

Crowley told her about the nights he spent sleeping rough, scared of every little sound and desperate to find anyplace safe at all. Of avoiding anyone who looked like they might give him a second glance because he was sure that they’d try and take him ‘home’ and he wasn’t sure he could handle being kicked out again, not so soon.

He talked about how the apple tree in the middle of Eve’s garden center had tempted him. How he’d been unable to resist sneaking over the fence and stealing as many apples as he could grab, so hungry after days without food. He’d gorged himself on them, hidden behind a bush, and then finally full he’d fallen asleep.

Voice faltering, he recounted how Eve had found him and how kind she’d been. How she’d given him a home and a sense of safety and space to be himself. He cried a little, fingers shaking around his crochet hook, when he described the skirts in the back of the closet in his shed and how he’d left them for Eve because she lost everything in the fire. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel safe enough to wear anything like that again and it felt as if he’d lost a part of himself in the fire and not realized it and he hated that it had gone without note.

When he began to talk about the fire, his breath sped up, his vision filled with dark spots and his hands clenched tight.

He tried to say how brave Aziraphale had been, but found he could only see what might have been, how Aziraphale might have suffered and died because Crowley was stupid. Giving up, he tried to explain why he’d even been in the building in the first place, but then Eve’s face as she told him not to bring trouble to her doorstep all those years ago and her quiet voice in the hospital filled his head and the black spots where taking over, he couldn’t breath, couldn’t feel his legs or his face or–

“Alright dear,” Marjorie said softly, “You’re safe here. Usually I tell people to count their breaths, but I think that might not be good for you.”

He let out a shaky sort of snort, but the numbness kept spreading.

“Have you ever seen a flower open in the morning?” The question was such a non sequitur that it actually managed to capture Crowley’s scattered attention.

Unable to speak, he nodded. He wanted to run, but knew his legs would never hold him. His chest stuttered as he tried and failed to take a full breath.

“Good. That’s good. Can you picture your favorite flower?”

Crowley thought about the cornflower blue of Aziraphale’s eyes and nodded.

“Of course you can,” she said and sounded so proud that it was all he could do not to sob. “I want you to picture it opening, each petal slowly curling outward and turning to face the sun and I want you to breath in.”

Crowley tried. He gathered what was left of his mind and dedicated it entirely to picturing the rich blue petals, arrayed in a sunburst around the purple center of the flower. He took a rattling breath in, his entire body shuddering.

“That’s good,” Marjorie said, her voice still soft. “When you feel like you can’t breathe in anymore, I want you to imagine the flower closing again as you breathe out. Trace the petals with your mind, find all the little spots and imperfections.”

“Just needs a bit of scolding,” Crowley muttered through the haze of panic, but he managed to follow her instructions.

“Again, as soon as your lungs are empty, the flower starts to open again and you’re breathing in.”

Crowley’s world narrowed to the flower and the feeling of a cool hook and soft yarm beneath his fingers and slow, achingly slowly, he was able to reel his thoughts back in to something approaching manageable.

“Sorry,” he muttered when he was able to feel his tongue again.

“It happens.” Marjorie was smiling at him when he opened his eyes. For a second he was afraid she might say something more about it, but she only gestured to the yarn in his lap. “You’re making good progress there, would you like to borrow the needle? I have plenty and you can take that home to keep working on.”

Crowley looked down at the lumpy rectangle in his lap. It was the exact sort of comfortably unfashionable that Aziraphale loved.

“Yeah,” he said very quietly. “I wanna keep working on it.”

* * *

The opening bars of ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ ring from Crowley's phone at noon, exactly two weeks after the last one. Fourteen days wasn't a lot. Or maybe it was, Crowley wasn't too sure anymore. It had been twice as long as it took to make the earth, according to some people, and Crowley felt every single one of those days.

The chunky-in-a-bad-way scarf was between his frozen hands, full of knots and occasional dropped stitches and he was planning on unravelling the whole thing at the end to redo because it was just for practice, just to have something to do with his hands. Except, well, he also half hoped in the quiet of his self-reflections that Aziraphale might want to keep it anyway, might gently bully Crowley into letting him have it because it was his first and it was a bit wobbly and over-eager, but still good…

But the phone was ringing, and it was Eve's ringtone, and just on the other end of a phone line miles away was _Eve_ and he couldn't think about that because what did she want to say? Would she just call to tell him to get the things he'd left? No, probably not, not if she needed it, but… what if she didn't? What if all the things he'd left were just reminders of something she didn't want in her life anymore?

Crowley wasn't sure if that was worse, somehow, and the very idea made his breathing came faster, causing the room to begin spinning because no matter how much and how often his lungs expanded he still somehow _wasn't breathing and–_

There was a flower, in his mind's eye. A blue flower with lots of beautiful, pointed petals and he breathed in until his lungs hitched and he had to start over 'cause the flower wasn't open yet, but he tried again and again, until he could breathe slow enough to get it to work. And then out, it closed again and opened and closed until he was ready to think.

The ringtone stopped, and that was the first time it'd rung all the way through instead of being rejected.

He let the voicemail get it, and didn't delete it after.

Someday he'd answer, maybe. But today he wasn't ready for it.

* * *


	24. Of Living Voices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A dissertation/thesis defense in the UK is traditionally called a ‘viva voce’ (“the viva”). It involves the candidate in a room with two examiners, one of whom is not from their university, and lasts a few hours. They’ll ask a series of questions (some are pretty standard but most will be specific to the thesis itself or the field in question) and the candidate is expected to verbally defend their research choices and conclusions. No one beside the candidate, the examiners, and (at the candidate’s request) the candidate’s advisor is allowed in the room, though there is a traditional party/trip to the pub afterward. 
> 
> Warnings: This chapter touches on caretaker burnout adjacent issues as well as Crowley's view of himself (improving! therapy!)

_** Last week in July ** _

“It’s bloody archaic is what it is.” Aziraphale could barely see Crowley’s hand as he gestured in the air above the couch, though the frustration in his voice was clear enough. He sighed, rubbing at his eyes as he tried to decide if it was worth having this discussion again. 

“Crowley,” he said, hoping that that would be enough to head off further ranting. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley mimicked back at him. He popped up and rested his chin on the top of the tiny couch, peering at Aziraphale through tired eyes. Aziraphale looked away to hide his smile; of course, he was delighted by that mocking tone but there was no call to let _Crowley_ know that, he’d never have a moment’s peace. Likewise, he did not ask what it was Crowley found so archaic. 

They lapsed into companionable silence. Aziraphale continued working his way through a third draft of his answers to the questions the examiners were likely to ask. Crowley remained contorted on the couch, watching Aziraphale with a tiny smile curling the corners of his mouth and his eyes half-lidded. He didn’t speak again until Aziraphale reached the end of his stack of papers and set them aside, pulling a fresh notebook from the pile in front of him and flipping back to the beginning of his thesis to start answering the questions anew. 

“Why’re you doing that?” Crowley asked. 

Aziraphale shot him a quick glance, but didn’t allow himself to be distracted. Over the last month his anxiety about his thesis had slowly increased until it was nearly all he could think about. His insomnia was at an all time high and, were it not for the fact that Crowley seemed to have more nightmares on the nights when Aziraphale didn’t come to bed, he didn’t think he’d be sleeping much at all. He knew there was little left that he could do before his viva, but he couldn’t fight the feeling that he’d not done enough, that he was going to be revealed as a fraud and be one of the very few who received a _ **Fail**_. 

“Because I want to be prepared,” he said. 

Crowley shifted around, clearly trying to untangle the mess that his limbs always turned into when he sat for longer than fifteen minutes. He grimaced lightly and Aziraphale made a mental note to set aside time to massage his hip later. 

“But, you already know what you’ll say to any of those,” Crowley said, crossing his arms under his chin. 

“I haven’t made edits on them since Professor Haistwell sent back ens notes on my most recent draft before our call this morning.” Speaking of… Aziraphale set aside the new notebook for a moment, searching out the scratch pad where he’d hurriedly jotted down the points Professor Haistwell had mentioned. There was one change that would be a perfect rebuttal to the theoretical problem that could be raised as a part of the final question (‘Do you think that your recommendations are feasible?’). 

He _did_ think that the methodology of repairing salt-damaged velum while improving its likelihood of surviving for years to come was feasible. He’d not used any techniques that were overly physically demanding or any materials that were unethical to obtain. Johnson, the numbskull, had been using pig’s fat for years and Aziraphale had dedicated nearly forty pages to examining why that was a particularly idiotic choice technically, to say nothing of the fact that there were a great many people who could not use it for religious reasons. Aziraphale was sure that his argument was well-founded, but Haistwell (rightly) had pointed out that it might look like he was personally attacking Johnson, rather than the man’s archaic techniques.

Perhaps, if he reworded it so that he was clear that–

“I can see you starting up again,” Crowley said. He sounded tired and Aziraphale was startled to realize it was already half past eight in the evening. 

Aziraphale set his pen down. Immediately, his fingers began to itch with the desire to pick it back up. There was just so much to do and he was so unprepared. He resisted. 

“I’m sorry, dear,” he said, trying to smile through the anxiety that pushed him to return to work, that said every second that ticked past was the one he’d have needed to pass. 

Crowley blinked his apology away, but Aziraphale still wanted to explain. 

“It’s just that I have a call with Professor Haistwell tomorrow and I don’t want ens to think I’m slacking off.” He knew his smile was wan, but it was the best he could do. 

“You’ve talked on the phone with him every day for the last two weeks,” Crowley said. “There might be a few old ladies in Ipswich who don’t know that you’re making progress, but unless Haistwell’s brain got replaced with a fiddlehead when no one was looking, there’s no way he thinks that.” 

That drew a reluctant laugh from Aziraphale. He looked down at the papers and notebooks scattered around him. He really should go through the questions at least one more time tonight, and there were all those edits to chapter three of the thesis itself, and-

Crowley cleared his throat, jerking Aziraphale back out of those thoughts. 

“Ah,” he said. Then, before they could creep back in, he stood and resolutely closed the notebook, placing his pen carefully into the divot at the spine so it wouldn’t roll away. “I suppose I could, perhaps, join you for a bit.” 

He crossed out of the tiny kitchen into the equally tiny living room. Crowley spun to sit length-ways across the couch, lifting his legs for Aziraphale to sit down before scooting close and wrapping around him. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale protested, but he was laughing and Crowley didn’t so much as twitch. 

“Sorry, you can’t be trusted not to go start muttering to yourself again.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth and then promptly shut it again, because well, he _did_ want to open his notebook again. Perhaps he could sit with Crowley for a bit and then come back down after the other man had fallen asl–

“What’s the weakest part of your work?” Crowley asked, breaking into his thoughts. It was such a non sequitur that it took a moment for the words to percolate. 

“What?” 

“You heard me, Mister Fell.” Crowley was doing his best impression of an RP accent, carefully enunciating far more precisely than Aziraphale had ever heard before. “What are the weakest parts of your work? Come on now, I’m sure you can think of something.” 

Deciding to just go along with whatever Crowley was trying to do Aziraphale thought back over his notes. He’d written up three different responses to this, he knew the answer. 

“I, uh, I know this,” he said. The word in his mind’s eye seemed to blur. Why was that happening? He _did_ know it. He was sure of that much. “My work is, uh, hampered? No, that’s not clever sounding enough. It’s limited, yes that’s good, it’s limited by the relatively meager, no, _small_ number of manuscripts with the specific sort of damage.” He trailed off, unable to find more words. 

“Okay,” Crowley said. “Why aren’t there more?” 

The rest of the evening passed that way; they’d slip into unrelated conversation and then, seemingly out of nowhere Crowley would ask him a question from his list. Aziraphale stumbled through each answer, flustered to be trying to defend himself aloud in a way he’d never felt while writing out his responses. Eventually, they retired to the tiny bedroom at the top of the stairs and Crowley clung to Aziraphale, keeping him from returning to the books on the kitchen table. He stared up at the ceiling and mouthed his answers, careful not to make any noise or tense up too much, all too aware that Crowley was attuned to him when they were this close. 

In the morning, when he could no longer stand the torment of leaving his work undone, Aziraphale slipped away. He paused only to kiss Crowley’s forehead before making his way downstairs to have a cuppa and get back to work. 

When Crowley finally made his way downstairs, he kissed Aziraphale and then said, voice still thick with sleep, “Who is your audience?”

Aziraphale started to look down at his notebook, but Crowley’s arms were around his shoulders and all he could see was the other man pressed against him. 

“Ah, well, you see I rather hope that it’ll be anyone who has need of it,” he finally managed. 

“Mm,” Crowley hummed, dropped another gentle kiss on his lips. “And who’s that?” 

“I suppose there’s need of it at universities in the Caribbean,” Aziraphale said, “And of course our own nautical museums.” 

“Good.” He was rewarded with another kiss and then Crowley pulled away and moved towards the percolator as if nothing strange at all had happened. 

This pattern continued over the next couple of days. On his way in from the garden Crowley would ask a question, and then another before he met Marjorie. He asked questions over dinner and if Aziraphale stumbled he asked more, forcing Aziraphale to explain himself or clarify or give evidence to back his words up. When Aziraphale got off the phone with Haistwell, Crowley asked him a question and then grinned at him and kissed the tip of his nose before disappearing out to the garden (where he was, apparently, constructing a snake castle for the numerous grass snakes that had decided to hang around the garden after he did some work on the stream earlier in the season). 

On the third day, Crowley asked, “Do your contributions have a limited timescale?” as he pulled down sugar from the cupboard to add to his tea. 

Without thinking, Aziraphale set his pen down and responded, “I would hope not, given that my work is centered around preservation. However, I understand that techniques are always changing and I’m excited to contribute to that tradition. As for the literal timescale, I am confident that my work has not, and will not, damage the documents for whose preservation it is engaged. Based upon my experiments with adhesives and ink stability, I expect that they will not need intensive attention for at least the next three decades, though of course no one can account for unknown variables such as microscopic mold spores or other such things.” 

A long silence greeted him after his answer. Aziraphale looked over at where Crowley leaned against the countertop; his eyes were soft and an open smile curved across his face. 

“Don’t you have a follow up question?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley always had follow up questions, poking at him to examine the flaws in his own arguments.

Crowley shoved off the counter and crossed to Aziraphale. He draped his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders from behind, resting his chin on Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

“No,” he said before pressing a gentle kiss to the place where Aziraphale’s pulse fluttered, “You’re ready, angel.” 

Aziraphale blinked, startled by the assertion. It was, he realized, true. In peppering them throughout their days, Crowley had ensured that they lost all power to fluster Aziraphale. He could remember the answers he and Haistwell had worked out and he could say those things confidently. 

“Crowley,” he choked out, suddenly overcome by how much he loved him. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Crowley murmured into the crook of his neck, “I’m a damn treasure.” 

* * *

On the day of Aziraphale’s viva, the very first rays of sunlight found both Aziraphale and Crowley already up and dressed. Crowley didn’t mind the morning, he was used to them after years of work at the garden center, but there was something odd about seeing Aziraphale willingly awake so early when he’d actually managed to sleep the night before. Aziraphale prepared a large travel mug of tea, adding an extra tea bag almost on autopilot. Crowley wasn’t hungry himself, but he toasted a few slices of bread and added cinnamon and sugar, knowing that Aziraphale would feel ill if he drank that much caffeine on an empty stomach. 

Aziraphale took the wrapped toast when Crowley pressed it into his hands, blinking blearily up at him. 

“Come on,” Crowley muttered, jerking his head towards the door. “Let’s see ‘bout beating the traffic, yeah?” 

He was very carefully not thinking about the fact that he hadn’t been back to London since leaving. He didn’t even really remember the drive out, it had all been a blur of pain and trying not to cry or tell Aziraphale to leave him. 

Suraj hadn’t exactly been happy about the two of them coming back, but when Aziraphale had explained why he’d promised to have some cops on campus and told them he’d have his cellphone on. Crowley didn’t like or trust him, but despite that, something in his chest felt a bit more settled knowing there would be people there to protect Aziraphale, should he need it. He might not believe that Suraj gave a shit about protecting him, but he knew Aziraphale was different. 

They made the drive in relative silence. Crowley even turned the volume of the radio down in deference to Aziraphale’s palpable anxiety. Every so often he’d glance over to see Aziraphale holding his pile of notebooks and papers in a white-knuckled grip, staring blankly out at the passing scenery. Halfway there, Crowley couldn’t stand it anymore and reached out and brushed the tips of his fingers across the back of Aziraphale’s hand. 

Aziraphale jerked, looking around wildly for a moment before his eyes landed on Crowley. Crowley tapped the back of his hand again, more insistently this time. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aziraphale tilt his head a bit, then he turned his hand over and intertwined his fingers with Crowley’s, holding tightly. Crowley squeezed it three times and turned his attention entirely back to the road. He only let go for the exact amount of time it took to shift gears, and returned his hand in Aziraphale with another three squeezes.

Crowley pulled the Bentley to a stop in the small underground parking structure just down the street from Aziraphale’s flat. They walked the short distance in silence, Aziraphale clearly lost in thought and Crowley scanning for even the briefest glimpse of anything connected to the Baratrum. He felt like he hadn’t breathed in hours by the time Aziraphale dug his keys out of his pocket and they slipped through the door. 

“I’m just going to… get dressed, I suppose,” Aziraphale murmured. Crowley nodded, watching him go. They were here because Anathema hadn’t brought Aziraphale’s suit to the cottage with the rest of his clothes and Aziraphale categorically refused to not wear the outfit he’d been planning on wearing for the last three years. 

Crowley wandered through the flat, feeling as if it had been years rather than months since he was there last. He paused in front of the couch, thinking of how seeing his mum again had felt like the end of the world. He snorted and shook his head. What a fucking fool he’d been, thinking things couldn’t be worse than they were then. 

Thinking of making a cup of coffee, Crowley turned towards the tiny kitchen. He wanted something to jolt himself from this contemplative mood; he wanted to feel fully _there,_ to support Aziraphale as he’d supported Crowley through so much. He flipped the switch on the kettle and slumped down into the seat he always took back when he was still just tutoring Aziraphale. While he waited for the water to boil, he scanned the room, idly looking for anything to amuse himself with while he waited. 

He was just contemplating the merits of trying (again) to beat his current level of candy crush when he spotted the drawings on the refrigerator. 

“Oh you sap,” he muttered, rising from the chair. 

Crowley was careful as he removed the magnets and took the papers down, fanning the drawings of orbits and stars he made for Aziraphale out in his hand. 

Aziraphale had kept them. 

Even after the term ended and he didn’t need them anymore. 

The idea was staggering. Crowley traced his fingers across the wobbly drawings, he’d spent so long trying to make them perfect, trying to make sure Aziraphale didn’t think less of him or find out about his struggles with reading. The kettle was boiling. Crowley set the drawings down on the table, quickly made a cup of coffee, and threw himself back into his seat. A sudden thought occurred as he did so. 

He’d expected to get fucked over this table that first night. He’d met Aziraphale at Monmouth’s and thought he was the most beautiful man he’d ever seen (an opinion that hadn’t changed) and then he’d been invited back up to his flat and Crowley legitimately could not believe this was his life. 

“Crowley, dear, do you think-” Aziraphale cut himself off. 

Crowley turned to see him approaching from the bedroom, wearing a three piece suit in various shades of cream with a tartan bow tie loose around his neck. His hair had been slicked down so not a trace of it’s natural curl remained and his mouth was still partially open. 

“What?” Crowley asked, looking around to see what might have startled Aziraphale. The only things out of place were the drawings and his coffee cup. 

“Nothing,” Aziraphale said after a moment. He smiled a bit shyly at Crowley. “I just like seeing you comfortable here.” 

That, Crowley thought, really was uncalled for. He swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat and stepped close, picking up the ends of the bow tie and beginning the slow process of tying it. 

“I like being in your space,” he managed to mutter when it was nearly complete. He twitched the tie back and forth a few times and smiled when Aziraphale chuckled. 

“Good,” Aziraphale said. 

Crowley brushed one hand down the front of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, enjoying the soft velvet beneath his fingers, and wrapped the other around the back of his head, pulling him close for a lingering kiss. Then, while Aziraphale was still distracted and couldn’t protest, he reached up and ruffled his hair, restoring it’s natural body and shape. 

“You looked like a nerd,” he said when Aziraphale made a dismayed noise of protest. 

“I’m getting my PhD, Crowley!” Aziraphale stepped away, trying in vain to retame his hair. 

“Well, yeah.” Crowley leaned against the table and smiled. Aziraphale looked good, calm and sure. He was ready, Crowley just knew it. 

“But, you don’t gotta be a _nerd_ about it.”

* * *

_** August ** _

* * *

"Aziraphale?" Marjorie asked gently when Aziraphale's attention wandered to where Crowley was slowly meandering his way up the garden path from the road below.

"Mhm, yes? Sorry, I was a bit… distracted." Aziraphale set down his tea cup and smiled sheepishly, twisting his fingertips against each other, more out of habit than true nerves these days.

Marjorie only laughed, light and fond in a way that never put Aziraphale's hackles up or made him think he was the joke rather than in on it. "I can see that, dear." Marjorie hummed to herself for a moment and wore a thoughtful look, finger tapping on her chin.

"Did you… need something?"Aziraphale murmured, finally tearing his gaze from Crowley to settle fully on the older woman.

"I think," she began softly, "It may be a good idea to have a bit of time with all three of us. There's plenty you two need to talk about, to each other, and without retreating back into the coping mechanisms you’ve each developed, too worried about hurting each other more than you are about hurting yourselves…"

Aziraphale grimaced and sighed, nodding. "Yes, I suppose that might not be a bad idea. I'll speak with Crowley, about it? Thank you for the tea, Marjorie, it's a delight as always."

"Of course, dearie," Marjorie smiled fondly as Crowley bounded up the final few feet to wrap his arms around Aziraphale's shoulders, grinning wide and happy as he bent to kiss Aziraphale's cheek over his shoulder. Aziraphale only sputtered a laugh and pulled Crowley back so he could return the favor, leaving no cheekbone unkissed.

"See ya tomorrow, Marjorie." Crowley held out a hand to help Aziraphale up and he took it, pleased at the feel of calluses on Crowley's hands, rough from recent use, as he braced under the unnecessary strain of pulling Aziraphale up. For a long time, it had felt like there was no end in sight to the frail, despondent version of Crowley Aziraphale could never seem to get used to. But talking with Marjorie, that had been a blessing in more than one way, for both of them. 

"I'll see you tomorrow, dearie. We'll be inside. I'm thinking of making a frittata, if I can unearth that recipe I've got." 

"Whatever ya say, boss!" Crowley tossed an insouciant smirk and sloppy salute over his shoulder, wrapping his arm around Aziraphale's shoulders. 

They walked home as slowly as they pleased.

* * *

Crowley breathed in deep and counted flower petals, they were never rushed and they stretched up to the sun and when he breathed out, he counted them down, calm as you like. He and Aziraphale were sitting next to each other on Marjorie's couch, a far cry from their usual positions with Crowley's arm flung across the back and Aziraphale's thigh pressed up against his. Now it was… not tense per se, but it was hard. The space between them felt dense, like clay packed so tightly he'd rip his nails out trying to dig through it. 

He knew there were tears on his cheeks, this was the closest to a "real" therapy session he'd ever had, sitting here with tea and biscuits and leftover frittata from earlier. Aziraphale had told him the night before what Marjorie thought, and Crowley trusted both Aziraphale and Marjorie, so he agreed and Aziraphale came along with Crowley when it was his time to go visit the old lady for the day. 

Marjorie had him working on the shortcrust for the frittata, careful to crumble the cold butter with the flour between his hands, working it meticulously in order to keep it as even as possible. Then the ice water, little to no stirring, just enough to keep his attention on what he was doing, handle it carefully, don't overwork it, keep your touch light.

All the while, he talked. Just like he'd done when it was just Marjorie before, but this time there was more. There was a whole, winding, explanation of things, of _himself_ that he'd gotten to know over the last six weeks, of where he'd pruned himself how he shouldn't have, how he'd been bruised and hurt and bruised and hurt others in turn to deal with it.

It all felt ugly and terrible and he was grateful Marjorie kept Aziraphale from trying to hold him or stop what was basically just a tirade about himself, 'cause if he stopped, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to start again. 

And then the frittata was in the oven, and Crowley kept talking. He didn't get the crochet, shouldn't get it he thought, as he kept babbling about what meeting Aziraphale had been like, 'cause that was where he’d gotten to in his life.

Like the stars, all the suns and moons all at once, his only source of light and reflection of it that lit him up, that was Aziraphale. He was slow and meandering and didn't much like being told to rush, but he was solid and Crowley hadn't realized he was _missing_ solid in his life, someone who told him exactly what they thought of him and meant it when they said they wanted to be with Crowley, by him, next to him, any and all of the above. 

It was… a revelation, of a sort.

Crowley told them both things they already knew about him in different ways, how the panic at the thought of anyone in the old gang knowing anything about Aziraphale gripped him nightly, the terror of waking up and not knowing if he was safe or if Aziraphale was safe, or if Aziraphale was just… _gone,_ because Crowley was too much to handle. How he hated his body sometimes, how it felt like a prison slowly constricting, forcing him to be present and in pain and it was too much to ask of anyone to care for him like that, but he asked anyway because he was selfish. 

He saw how much it took from Aziraphale, to care for him, when Aziraphale didn't know he was looking and Crowley didn't think he'd really ever forgive himself for that, and for letting his damn, stupid feet and hands and _hip_ fucking ruin it all, cause eventually he would. It was good now, so, so good, but eventually Aziraphale would hit a point where Crowley was _too much_ , just like everyone did, and if that was a decade down the road, well then Crowley would count himself lucky and he'd leave if Aziraphale told him to, but he knew it'd hurt more than he was ready for. So he was trying to be ready, whatever shoe fell.

And so Crowley cried, it was a lot, and he was wrung out so it trickled down his cheeks from his eyes like dishwater from a rag. Marjorie took the frittata from the oven just before it dinged and poured them all some more tea, slicing the frittata into generous slices and putting them on plates that they each balanced on their knees, and Aziraphale didn't touch him. So, Crowley wiped his face as best he could and shoved his sunglasses on for a moment before ripping them off and letting them fall to the couch next to him, because wiping at his eyes while they still watered wasn't working, no matter how much he had to hide. He definitely didn't do it because Marjorie challenged him on it with a too-knowing look and a raised eyebrow.

He wanted to be vulnerable with Aziraphale! He did. More than anything. He just… was very bad at it.

"I think," Marjorie started softly, handing over a few tissues to Crowley to dry his face and hands and blow his nose, "Aziraphale you've got a few things to say–"

"Oh, I– no, I think I'm fine," Aziraphale fretted, it was obvious he was fretting because he was twisting his fingers together in ways that Crowley always thought looked painful even if Aziraphale didn’t seem to think the same. Actually, Crowley realized, he didn't know if it hurt, he didn't _know_ if that was a self-soothing, grounding pain or punishment for himself. And he wanted to reach out, to hold Aziraphale's hands, but the thought of being rejected right now was… too much to bear. So he didn't.

"Aziraphale," Marjorie said back, in her no-nonsense tone Crowley only really heard when he was gearing himself up to panic or losing himself into a spiral of some sort. "Don't downplay your own feelings, Crowley is an adult, he can choose for himself if it's more than he can handle right now, but if you don't give him that choice in the first place…"

Aziraphale sucked in a sharp breath at that and grimaced, and Crowley held his own breath, lungs stopped in his chest, until Aziraphale nodded.

* * *

Aziraphale didn't want to be like everyone else. For a long time he had wanted exactly that, but now? Aziraphale didn't want to be another notch on Crowley's heart, another weight on him, another unfairness. And that's what it was, unfair, if he didn't give him a chance to help back. Or, at least, that's what Marjorie had said and it _sounded_ right so Aziraphale had been doing his best to believe that and internalize it this last week.

"I– alright." Aziraphale sighed softly and looked away, tapping his fingers to each other, twisting them until the skin rubbed coarse between his fingers, not really callouses, but something like it, his skin abraded but not broken enough to ever bleed.

He took a deep breath, and while he didn't have as much background to share as Crowley, he had just as many now-thoughts and feelings. 

"I'm… relieved I suppose," Aziraphale started, hesitant and stilting, "I'm so relieved every day you smile at me, Crowley. I don't think I've ever been so happy, and I'm even relieved on the days you can't smile and they're bad and you can't seem to get out of bed. Those are harder, yes, but I'm still relieved.”

"I'm so relieved I feel like I could float away, there's nothing grounding me. I feel untethered and like I could drift with the wind, any way it blows. But I _can't_ , because that'd be bad. Crowley needs me here and he needs me to be strong, sturdy like he said. Something he can support himself with when he needs it, and I can't– I can't just be sitting here floating away and unable to realize he's calling me if he needs help!" 

Aziraphale took in a deep, shuddering breath, he wasn't crying, not yet, and Marjorie stood, her hands up and palms out to keep them both sitting.

"You two stay," she said. "I'll make some more tea, but I think you'd do better now just talking to each other, rather than to me. You've a bit to say left, dearie, so don't mind me." And just like that, Marjorie left, returning to the kitchen and quietly putting the kettle on once again.

"Azira–" Crowley started, but Aziraphale held up his hand to stop him, pausing for just a moment before bridging that impossible seeming gap and pulling him in for a tight hug, as much as he dared. He knew Crowley’s ribs were healed, but something in him quailed at the thought of his embrace hurting. 

With Crowley's head on his shoulder and Aziraphale's chin tucked on top of Crowley's crown, he breathed in deeply again and played with the end of the lanky man's braid. 

"No, I– I'm sorry, love, but I need to say it, and I don't know if I can if you stop me or–" Aziraphale bit off the _or look at me_ because that really wasn't fair to say, even if it were true. But Crowley didn't ask, just pressed his face into the crook of Aziraphale's neck and leaned into him, maybe to ground him, who knows, relaxing in that deliberate way Crowley had where his muscles went all loose and his body turned into more of a blanket than a person. 

"Do you remember, when I set up that news alert? That I had you help me do? I said it was for manuscripts, which was correct in part, that's the one you set up. But I wanted you to show me how to do it so I could set up another one. Any news articles mentioning 'Dr. Lucien Avgerinós' or staff from my university or even baratrum or mob or gang connections in police custody. Oh I must have set up nearly a baker's dozen of them, checking every day like it was a highly curated newspaper, skimming through the articles every morning over tea….”

"It was all I could allow myself, the tether to keep me here and now and worried about where we were in all of this, how things might be affecting us, all of that, but without checking every twenty minutes, every five minutes, for an update. It felt like lying though, I think. Like I was keeping it from you to hurt you, even though I know that wasn't the case I just– I didn't want you to stop me from it, I didn't want to have a row about it, I didn't… I didn't have the energy for that."

Crowley sighed softly, a heavy breath more than a sigh even, but Aziraphale felt the way Crowley moved against his chest and he closed his eyes, shifting again to wrap his arms around Crowley's waist to hold him close. 

"But the- the point of bringing that up, my dear, is there was a relevant news alert. And I feel lighter than ever, it feels like it's _over_ and we're _okay_ and we'll be totally alright because it's said and done but that's not true is it? Maybe for me, I only dealt with them, with all of this, for what, a few months? And it's been half holiday this whole time too, it feels like. A little unreal, us living together like this– in a good way, I mean! Like it's all been a dream I'm loath to wake up from…”

"But it's not for you, is it? You've got nightmares and physical hurts that haven't even healed all the way really, and that's rather selfish of me, to feel like this. You're still working through so much and everything you've gone through is still… there. It's still there, and I know it is. I've seen how you check who's coming up the road if it's by car and how you still feel safer in your sunglasses more often than not, and how–" Aziraphale's voice broke and he sniffled, hating the way crying made him sound. Crowley only hummed and kissed his throat, and began to gently rub circles into his back and sides, slow and soothing. And even though Aziraphale could feel the tension slowly leech into Crowley's body once more, he didn't interrupt, so he could ignore it at least long enough to get through all this.

"I just– I don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel, what’s the right thing at all, but I am feeling relieved, chapter over, book done, never have to look at it again, but that's wrong. It's not fair to you, you're relying on me being there for you and ignoring all this… trauma you've gone through, that's not healthy, right? But that's not _all_ of you and focusing on that feels wrong too, and I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what you need from me most days, I just have to guess, and hope it's not wrong, hope it won't make anything worse for you, take it at face value that you want to stay in bed all day when you say it even though I _know_ it makes you miserable, but it's not– it's not my body so I don't. I don't know."

Crowley tapped Aziraphale's side pointedly, not hard or enough to really startle him, but enough to get the point across, he was working himself up into a real panic and best cut it off now if possible. So Aziraphale breathed, slow and deep, matching Crowley's breathing which was, coincidentally, perfectly timed for Aziraphale, of course. He hugged Crowley tight to his chest, just a little tighter than he'd dared before, which was rewarded with Crowley melting against him once more in a far less deliberate way. It reminded Aziraphale a little of the first time Crowley had fallen asleep on him in the garage when they'd drank and fixed up the Bentley and Aziraphale massaged his leg. 

Was he being too careful with Crowley? Too light-handed, afraid he'd break apart, too fragile to touch properly?

The thought made Aziraphale sob, a little thing that escaped his control. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean– this whole time have I been?" Crowley didn't answer except to hug Aziraphale back a little tighter, but maybe that was for the best.

"But– but, anyway, what the whole point of it was, the news alert. Earlier, a little less than a week —Tuesday I think?— there was an alert, about the case it looked like." Aziraphale had burnt the headline into his mind and he wasn't entirely sure he'd ever forget it, and recited it verbatim, "Court date set for alleged head of the baratrum, officers hopeful to dismantle and investigate further into the organized syndicate."

Crowley was silent, Aziraphale couldn't seem to think of anything else to say, not about that, so he just… kept on. "And that's why I feel so light, I think. It's over and I feel ready to fly away, but I shouldn't, I can't, I have things here that should keep me grounded and down to earth, I've got _you_ and I passed my viva, but I don't… I don't want to let you down. You've been counting on me to do things around the cottage and to make sure things are ok and that's fine! I don't mind it, really! I _like_ being useful and appreciated and you let me feel both, and I _know_ I'm loved with you even though sometimes I… I don't know."

"Just hard to remember?" Crowley said softly, little more than a whisper and Aziraphale almost missed it.

"Yeah, that. Just… just sometimes though," Aziraphale murmured back. "But it's getting better. Recently. The– the days you're up and feeling alright help. Not– not because you're a burden! No, never that, it's not what I meant, I'm sorry, I just mean–" Aziraphale sighed, frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair, fingers twisting in his curls and gripping tightly, not pulling, not with his hand, but his fingers curled and held tighter until he was pulling anyway and–

Crowley leaned up and gently untangled Aziraphale's hands from his hair and shifted so he could hold both of Aziraphale's hands, cradled really, and kissed the knuckles. "I know, or at least I think I know. It's… you've never said you're upset taking care of me, even with the scar cream gone you still insist on helping me with lotion, ah, no I'm not upset about it, I like it too it's… the intimacy is nice, you touching my skin is nice. Even when it's not about sex, especially then, actually I think."

Aziraphale scooted all the way back in his seat and pulled Crowley into his lap, legs hanging off the side of the couch haphazardly, and his shoulder leaning into Aziraphale's for balance. "I like that too, the intimacy, and touching. Even and especially without ah.. More carnal drives behind it." Aziraphale blushed and Crowley laughed at him for it, in a soft way, a kind and fond way that always lit up something in Aziraphale's chest to see. He didn't mind it, being part of the joke, not when it was Crowley and certainly not when he looked so utterly in love. Crowley would call it disgusting, soppy and bad for his reputation, but Aziraphale liked it very much anyway.

"But, that's what I meant, at least. The days you're up, it's because you seem happier, for having gotten up, for being able to get up, but I want you to know, the days you can't, I don't love you any less on those. It's painful to see you in pain and not being able to do anything about it, because I do, I want to soothe you and take care of you and that's… that's why I bully you about those stretches so much, because it's all I know how to to do help —and please tell me if it doesn't and I'll stop, but it seems like it is?— and I don't know. That's the long and short of it. I love you when you're well and I love you when you're not. That's what it's about right? Sickness and health and all that?"

"That sounds disturbingly close to a proposal, Mr Fell," Crowley teased and peppered kisses over Aziraphale's cheeks and lips and forehead and along his jaw until he was giggling and kissing Crowley back, tears long since dry and feeling light and free in a way that didn't come with the inherent threat of a balloon, ready to fly off and float away at the slightest inattention. 

_What if,_ Aziraphale thought, _what if it was._

And then Marjorie came in with a fresh pot of tea and finger sandwiches even though they’d just had frittata, and he didn't think about it any more, because they had all the time in the world now, didn't they? To figure it all out, themselves included.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (spoilers, but in case it wasn't clear: Aziraphale killed it and passed his defense with no edits needed (a rarity, but he's a smart cookie). he'll be an official doctor as soon as he's hooded. we're all very proud.)


	25. Of Village Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We did it kids! A chapter with no warnings!

"Spiced or plain?" 

Crowley jumped, startled to find that they were at the head of the queue. He blinked rapidly, trying to drag his mind back around to the present moment. 

“Are you all right? Aziraphale leaned even closer, tilting his head back against Crowley’s shoulder where his arm was draped across Aziraphale. Crowley liked when he did that, when he chose to press close and tight and made it clear that he was choosing to do so, that he wanted to touch Crowley as much as Crowley wanted to touch him. 

Crowley liked touching Aziraphale. 

It seemed a bit ridiculous to think in such plain terms when they’d been dating for the better part of a year. _Of course_ Crowley liked touching Aziraphale. He knew there were people out there who didn’t like or want touch, but that had never been his own problem. He’d always wanted it too much, always sought it out even when he didn’t especially want all the other things that seemed to come along with it. Even now that he was becoming used to casual touches, sometimes he still felt like his flesh crawled with the afterimage of Aziraphale’s skin against his. 

He never wanted that feeling to go away. 

“Crowley?” 

“Fuck, right.” Crowley grinned sheepishly at Aziraphale and then the older pair of people behind the narrow table in front of them. He used his free hand to sweep the shitty Tesco check-out mask up from his face to the top of his head. “Woolgathering or whatever, I guess.” 

The man—Bernard, Crowley thought he was called—grunted in a generally positive way. Crowley had to resist the powerful urge to grunt right back. He liked a man who communicated without vowels, it was easier that way he’d always thought. The woman, who looked so similar to Bernard that Crowley could only assume she was his sister, rolled her eyes at him. 

“There’s plenty of wool to be gathered,” she said to Crowley as she folded her face into something he was sure was meant to be a smile but really only barely crossed the line from scowl into grimace. 

An awkward silence descended. Aziraphale’s arm tightened a bit around Crowley’s waist and Crowley allowed his arm to rest just that much heavier across his shoulders. 

Finally, Aziraphale murmured, “Well?” 

“Well what?” 

“Do you want spiced or plain cider, dear?” Now Crowley could hear the laughter in Aziraphale’s voice. 

Oh. Right. He’d been asked a question. 

“Ah, whatever you want, angel,” he muttered. He really, really couldn't care less about what sort of hot drink was in his free hand, only that it was hot. It might only be october, but he was bloody well freezing. He thought longingly of the gloves he’d deemed himself too cool to bother with as he watched Aziraphale order and pay for their drinks. 

Aziraphale took one of the steaming disposable cups mugs and pressed it into Crowley’s hand before taking the second and taking a deep drink, eyes half-closed in delight. When he lowered the cup and breathed out his breath filled the air in front of him with a cinnamon scented cloud. Then, he looked up at Crowley and smiled and every sharp angle in Crowley melted away to nothing but soft knitwear. 

“How is it?” he asked. 

“Wonderful.” Aziraphale took another sip, eyes once again fluttering shut in enjoyment. 

Someone cleared their throat and Crowley looked up to see that they were still standing at the head of the queue. He started to angle his head so that he could properly glare at the impatient party over the rim of his glasses, but Aziraphale had also heard. 

“Oh! How rude of us.” He smiled at the people behind them in reflexive apology and wrapped his free arm around Crowley’s waist, pulling him away from the cider stand and towards the main path that wended its way through the narrow aisles between stands. Crowley half-twisted around to give them a stern look anyway; couldn’t let the locals think they were people to mess with, after all. 

“You’re a holy terror,” Aziraphale murmured into his cup as he took another sip. 

“You love me for it.” 

“I do.” 

Aziraphale tasted like cinnamon and nutmeg and apples when he turned his head up to Crowley for a kiss. Crowley drank the warmth from him like he’d been caught in the cold in only a vest. When Aziraphale eventually pulled back his lips were shiny and his hair just a bit mussed where it poked out from under his knit hat. 

“Perhaps,” he said, sounding out of breath, “we can continue this in private later.” 

Crowley smirked back, waggling his eyebrows at Aziraphale, pleased with the chuckle he'd drawn from him, and slipped their hands together, lacing their fingers. Crowley stood by and sipped slowly at his drink–it was good he was mostly in it for the warmth in his free hand–and watched as slews of people from in town greeted Aziraphale.

From those toting around older children and the occasional teenager sulking behind them came things like; "Oh, Azira! Congratulations, we heard!" and “Doctor Fell! We were so happy to hear!” 

People around their own age were more enthusiastic; "You did well, it sounds! Really, no changes? Hot damn!"

“Good work,” said old men around their pipes even as their wives pitched Aziraphale’s cheeks in pride and said, "Dearie, you're a doctor now! Look at you!" 

Fewer people greeted Crowley, which he much preferred. He had no idea how Aziraphale managed to hold conversations with that many people, let alone remember their names. But a small handful of them continued on to Crowley after giving their congratulations and talking about the weather and other nothings with his partner. 

When she approached, Crowley was genuinely delighted to chat with Sunny, the owner of the local yarn shop. He made sure to call her Sonia as an excuse for her to pat his hand like the little old lady she was and tell him one more time to, “Call me Sunny.” She gave him a knowing look and asked about the sweater he'd been trying to knit, eliciting a grimace from Crowley and a laugh from Aziraphale who’d had to listen to Crowley lamenting the entire process. The problem was he'd started it a bit oddly, but he’d quickly steered himself back on track and really it was ridiculous that he was still having issues. The ladies down in the yarn shop had helped him figure out where he’d gone wrong, he shouldn’t still be having problems! Admittedly, their advice was to pull it all out and start over with the sleeve he'd been working on, saying that the only hope was to begin again with a thicker weight of yarn if he had any hope of it being useful for the type of weather he’d hoped.

“How’s Mr. Sunny?” Crowley asked, staunchly refusing, as always, to remember the extra names that his acquaintances came along with. 

Sunny smiled gently at him, gesturing vaguely over her shoulder. “Off harassing Mr. Tyler.” 

Crowley grinned. Crowley was of the opinion that RP Tyler deserved whatever harassment he received. 

"Is he wearing yours?" Sunny broke into his thoughts with another smile, this one old and soft and knowing.

"I, uh– yeah. Made it, sure. That." Crowley shrugged and looked away, unwilling to acknowledge the return of the furious blush that had nearly killed him earlier. 

Sunny just laughed a little at his embarrassment, tittering behind her hand and cooing like a grandmother at him. She pulled him down to stoop a little so she could fix his own, seasonally inappropriate, scarf until it was a bit more secure and somehow warmer around his neck.

"It looks _lovely_ dear, you picked good colors for him, I _had_ been hoping that pastel wasn't for you…." She laughed, perpetually a jolly sort of woman when she wasn’t trying to harass him into learning to use circular needles.

"Y– yeah, thanks, I guess…," Crowley grumped back, hunched in on himself and more than a little relieved when she stepped back just a half-step, giving him a bit more space. She was lovely; a wonderful, kind woman, but sometimes her fussing over him and his clothes made his skin crawl. He appreciated that she paid attention and clearly cared enough to want to try and help him be comfortable. Really, he didn’t think it was his fault that he'd somehow gotten himself an honorary abuela at the yarn store instead of yarn?

Aziraphale's hand touched the angle of Crowley's elbow and he nearly ripped it away, only barely recognizing the feel of Aziraphale's touch and sturdy presence in time to sink into it instead. Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow and pressed a kiss to Crowley's cheek.

"You're shivering, my dear. Bonfire?" Aziraphale murmured, low enough that Sunny likely heard but would also likely be nice enough not to giggle about what a lovely man Crowley had caught. Crowley thought about arguing, but a sudden breeze that seemed to slice across every inch of him through the weave of his clothing. 

So, Crowley agreed and they waved goodbye to Sonia and he allowed himself to be steered off towards the fire located more or less in the center of the fair. The entire affair was set up in the large center square in town, with the fire at the center and little stands and shops radiating outward. The crowd all seemed to flow that way, guiding them along like leaves on a stream and then thinning out when they reached the larger open area. 

He frowned a little when Aziraphale tugged on his elbow as they approached, looking over curiously, only for his lips to pull into a tight grimace at the worry on Aziraphale's face. 

"It's alright," Crowley reassured him, turning his face to the fire, just close enough to feel the heat of it. His hands and the soles of his feet twinged a bit and his face felt tight with the heat even though they were still far enough away that he knew the sensation was all in his head. But, the feeling didn’t make him panic. 

"It's alright, love," he whispered and turned to wrap his other arm around Aziraphale as well, pulling him into a tight hug, "It's not the same enough– I'm… I'm fine, actually." The feeling of the tension in Aziraphale's shoulders and back releasing underneath his arms was like breathing in on the perfect day; like the inhale at the beginning of a journey and at the exhale at the end of one, a sense of potentiality and resolution all bound up in Aziraphale’s breath. 

“I’m glad to hear it,” Aziraphale said into the crook of his neck, fingers tightening on his shirt under his light jacket. It warmed something deep in Crowley that Aziraphale didn’t question his assertion that he was fine. It was nice to be trusted. 

“I’m glad you’re glad.” Crowley winced at his own awkwardness and felt the chuckle as it rolled through Aziraphale. 

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale asked, amusement clear. 

Crowley tightened his hug briefly before leaning back and dropping a quick kiss on Aziraphale’s forehead. “Yep,” he said, “Sure as I am that that mustache is ridiculous.”

“No fair,” Aziraphale sniffed, “You drew it.” 

“And I did a fucking great job.” 

* * *

“You look ridiculous.” Crowley leaned back against the sink in their bathroom, watching with a light smile as Aziraphale fussed with the various pieces of his costume. The flyer they’d received in their mailbox hadn’t said costumes were required, but as soon as Aziraphale saw the words “autumn” and “festival” together he’d lit up like a goddamned christmas tree, diving into his closet and pulling out individual pieces while muttering to himself as if he’d half lost his mind. This was the first time Crowley was seeing the entire thing all together. 

“Pardon you,” Aziraphale sniffed. “I look good.” 

“I can’t even tell what you’re meant to be.” 

Aziraphale leaned close to the mirror, tugging at the corners of his bowtie. “I’m a magician!” 

It took a moment for the words to percolate through Crowley’s mind. 

“A what?” 

The blinding grin was turned on Crowley, leaving him grateful he’d already been leaning against the sink as his knees went weak. He loved that smile so fucking much. 

“Ridiculous,” he repeated. 

Aziraphale ignored him, turning back to the mirror to keep fixing his costume. After a bit, he turned to Crowley and spread his arms. “Well? How does it look?” 

Crowley studied him. He really did look like a magician. His suit was black, setting off the yellow brocade waistcoat nicely. At his cuffs glinted the winged cufflinks he’d received in the mail from Michael as a gift upon passing his viva. The whole ensemble screamed, “Ladies and gentlemen! I will be performing cheesy tricks and disappointing you tonight!” 

Except…

“It’s just missing one thing,” Crowley told him. He scooped up one of his own eyeliner pencils from the counter and stepped close, reaching up to cradle the side of Aziraphale’s face. 

“Oh?” Aziraphale breathed, eyes still open wide and pupils blown huge. Crowley smiled at him, pleased by his boyfriend’s reaction to such a simple touch. 

“Yeah,” Crowley whispered. He leaned down and planted a slow, gentle kiss on Aziraphale’s lips. Then, he pulled back and, before Aziraphale could recover or protest, he swiped one thumb over Aziraphale’s upper lip to dry it and drew on a quick mustache, nothing more than a single curled line on each side. Aziraphale held still while he worked, but as soon as Crowley let go he whirled away to face the mirror again. 

“Crowley!” He tried to scowl, but the corners of his lips twitched and his eyes were scrunched with humor and Crowley knew he wouldn’t be wiping the mustache away. 

“Every magician needs a stupid mustache, angel.” 

“Well, what shall I draw on you?” Aziraphale asked, reaching around to grab the pen from Crowley’s hand. 

Crowley snorted and pulled his own ‘costume’ out from his back pocket, slipping it over his head even as he backed away from Aziraphale’s reach. In the brief two seconds it took him to get the mask settled it had already begun to itch and Crowley regretted every part of his plan, but Aziraphale was smiling up at him and that was worth any little itch. 

“A snake?” 

Crowley turned and wrapped one arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders, pulling him tight so they could both squeeze into the tiny bathroom mirror. The elastic string had mussed his hair, so the freshly cut ends were all standing akimbo and the mask sat slightly off-kilter. But, Aziraphale looked great and that was really all that mattered. 

“It’s called style, Aziraphale,” he said, pulling his sunglasses out of his pocket and slipping them onto his face around the edges of the mask. “Look it up.” 

Aziraphale did not appear convinced. 

Crowley slipped back into the bedroom, opening the wardrobe door and peering inside as if still deciding what to wear over the thick leggings he’d taken to wearing under everything as the weather turned colder. He knew what he wanted to wear. It was just… Well, he’d never worn one around Aziraphale and all his old ones had been left behind for Eve after the garden center burned. 

Reaching out half-absently, Crowley ran tentative fingers down the edge of the heavy wool. 

“It’s a lovely piece,” Aziraphale said, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s waist from behind and stretching up to rest his chin on Crowley’s shoulder. “It would look good with your jacket.” 

Crowley felt like his heart was about to beat from his chest. They hadn’t ever really talked about it, not with everything else that had happened so soon after, but Aziraphale had whispered to him late in the night on more than one occasion that he loved Crowley no matter how he identified, no matter the clothes he wore or anything else. 

Crowley trusted Aziraphale and knew he wasn’t lying. But feeling that trust in the abstract and feeling it when actually deciding to pull the skirt from the wardrobe seemed very far apart. 

“Yeah?” he rasped. His upper lip brushed against the inside of his mask as he spoke. 

Aziraphale squeezed him quickly before letting go and reaching around him to pull the skirt down from it’s hanger. 

“Yes,” he said simply. 

Crowley swallowed and nodded and took the skirt from him. He moved back and carefully stepped over the waistband, pulling it up past his hips and taking the time to properly tuck his loose grey shirt into it before smoothing the front and sides. Aziraphale watched him and then, when Crowley finished adjusting the fit, he took the zipper and slowly pulled it upward, hands warm on Crowley’s hips as he did so. 

“There,” he said, sounding half breathless with desire. “You look wonderful, my dear.” 

“Yeah?” Crowley asked again, feeling rather like a broken record. He swayed back and forth a little, enjoying the weight of the wool and the way it felt swinging around him. He’d really, _really_ missed this. “Thanks.” 

“Hm,” Aziraphale hummed as he rose up and cupped the back of Crowley’s head, pulling him down for another lingering kiss, carefully angled below the mask. “How’d I get so lucky?”

“Nooo,” Crowley groaned, “That’s unfair and you know it.” 

“Never claimed to play fair, darling.” 

Crowley barked out a laugh, suddenly feeling lighter than he’d felt in ages. 

They made their way towards the front door, pausing in the entryway to put on their warmer coats and scarves. Aziraphale picked up his usual one, a soft tartan number Crowley loathed on principle, but Crowley had a sudden realization. He’d finished the– 

“Wait here!” 

“Wha–?” But Crowley had already darted away, scrambling around the back of the couch for his satchel and then, when he found it, for the soft mound of yarn contained within. 

“Here,” he said when he slid to a stop once more beside Aziraphale. “S’for you.” 

Aziraphale took the bundle that had been shoved in his direction and began to untangle it, one eyebrow lifted curiously. 

“Oh, Crowley,” he murmured when it was finally revealed to be a lumpy sky blue scarf. Crowley helped him put it on and then arranged the uneven tails against his chest, fussing with the edges as he tried to hide all the places where he’d added or lost stitches. He hadn’t realized how shabby it looked until faced with it against the clean lines that Aziraphale preferred. 

“Ah, it’s shit,” he grumbled, moving to take it off. Aziraphale grabbed his wrist to stop him. 

“I love it,” he said very firmly. “I cannot put into words how much I love this scarf and unless you don’t want me to have it, I’d prefer to keep wearing it.” 

Crowley swallowed back the emotion that rose in his throat. 

“No, no, that’s okay,” he rasped. “You can keep it. Blue’s not really my color.” 

“Quite right.” 

* * *

Crowley sipped at the last of his spiced cider and the warmth left over from the drink leached out of his hands leaving them cool and barren in the cold air. He threw out his cup and took Aziraphale's too once it had been finished, and the cold slowly turned the tips of his fingers icy as they began to amble their way towards the large bonfire at the center of the festival. 

The cold wasn't unbearable, but it made the pockets of his jacket more and more tempting by the second, because at least it'd block a bit of the minor wind-chill in the wind-tunnel valley of a community center field. He was grateful for the weight of the skirt and the warm press of his leggings. 

"Crowley!" Aziraphale exclaimed, grabbing Crowley's hands between his own and rubbing them together, "Oh I _knew_ I should have bullied you into buying some gloves, even leather would have been better than this stiff upper lip nonsense you've got about gritting your teeth through it!" Aziraphale shot Crowley a look from underneath his eyelashes and Crowley couldn't help the flush that shot up his neck to take permanent residence on his cheeks.

Every time, _every damn time_ , he forgot what it felt like to be _known_ , to be seen as a whole and not only a disjointed sum of his parts to be viewed a single facet at a time. And every damn time it surprised him at how easily Aziraphale managed it; how he could scold Crowley about taking care of himself without making Crowley feel like it was a personal failing instead of just something to work on next time. It surprised him how warm it made him feel—even as he felt cracked open and bare and vulnerable—because no matter how upset Aziraphale got, Crowley knew that he'd never sharpen that feeling into attacks or recriminations.

"Yeah," Crowley huffed under his breath. He barely remembered what Aziraphale was fretting about with the heat of his hands bled through the gloves and warmed Crowley again, chasing away the icy chill of the air. 

"Then you agree with me?" Aziraphale asked slyly with a grin, looking utterly cherubic and just as mischievous. 

"Whoa– whoa, I wouldn't go so far as _that_ , angel!" Crowley threw back, breaking into a disgustingly besotted smile when Aziraphale laughed.

 _"Mister Crowley!"_ A chorus of young voices came in a half-way decent mockery of unison, sending a thrill up the back of Crowley's neck. It felt almost like adrenaline, but without the panic that always seemed to follow in adrenaline’s wake these days, without the fear of being found in a way that would hurt Aziraphale, that would hurt _him_. 

(He was discovering that those fears weren’t an omnipresent deity he was forced to worship anymore, but the old shakes were hard to leave behind.)

Crowley whirled around and stepped in front of Aziraphale, because even when one felt safe and sure, some habits wouldn't be changed so easily, not when they'd been ground into him with the heel of a steel-toed boot. He took a brief second to look around. Then, whatever tension that had crept into his shoulders melted away as he felt himself light up, laughter bubbling forth from him.

"Kids!" he crowed loudly, dropping to a knee just in time to catch a catapulting Adam and Brian—the latter of whom was somehow covered in drips of black-ice turned frost turned slush at every edge of his coat—and be bowled over by the enthusiastic pre-teens babbling over each other about Crowley being dead and how he was late, _‘cause Jesus only took three days to come back to life_ , and _was he a lich? Because they just learned about those and where was his phylactery_? Pepper's mum said phylactery was where he kept his soul and did he give it to anyone for safe-keeping?

Crowley laughed, bright and loud, even as the cold of the ground began to seep into him, juxtaposed against the weighted comfort of the Them. His hip twinged when Pepper and Wensleydale joined the dog pile, deliberately lying atop the others and chattering away about all the things Crowley had missed. News of Eve and how sad she seemed was peppered between stories of Adam’s new puppy and even that guilt couldn't quite pull down the mood past their infectious cheer. They’d been entirely sure he'd died in the fire no matter what they'd been told and were ecstatic to discover the adults around them had been telling the truth.

“CrowleyCrowleyCrowleyCrowley,” Adam chanted as he wriggled out from beneath Pepper and Wensleydale, his head popping up like a small, very ruffled, ground squirrel. “You have to meet my sister! She’s been gone for so long and she came back and even Dog likes her!” 

The other three nodded as seriously as they could while still sprawled across each other. Crowley felt Brian’s hands moving around as he tried to gesture and talk at the same time, pulling a giggle forth from Pepper when he accidentally tickled her. 

“Actually, she really is very nice,” he said over Pepper’s laughter and Wensleydale’s attempts to figure out if Adam or Crowley were ticklish. “She bought us all drinks earlier.” 

Crowley nodded, sure that if he spoke he’d start crying. He’d not expected to ever see the kids again, certainly not when they were still young enough to react so enthusiastically to him. “I’d love to meet her,” he finally choked out, “Any friend of Dog’s is a friend of mine.” 

The kids cheered and descended into another rapidfire battery of questions and stories about teaching Dog tricks and how he really was the cleverest beast in all the world and Crowley let it wash over him, unable to stop smiling. 

* * *

“Hello, dearie.” 

Aziraphale looked away from where Crowley was bravely fending off the best attempts of what appeared to an entire pack of children to berate him into three different conversations at the same time. Marjorie was approaching from the direction of the small pop-up market. She wore a long, lopsided scarf and mittens in a matching dusty pink. Aziraphale hoped Crowley saw them, he did so enjoy the half-pleased, half-embarrassed look that his boyfriend got when faced with concrete evidence that people appreciated the things he made for them. 

Marjorie stepped up beside Aziraphale, looking equally as baffled as Aziraphale by the commotion on the ground, but smiling softly. Aziraphale understood, there was no missing the joy on the faces of the five on the ground. Crowley laughed a lot more these days than he ever had before, but such open happiness was still rare enough to feel like a treat. 

"They really love him, don't they?" Marjorie asked conversationally, watching Aziraphale—who hadn't looked away from the puppy pile for longer than the half-second it took to greet her—with a smile. 

"Apparently so… he's talked about them before. Apparently they call themselves t _he Them_.” Aziraphale had always loved Crowley’s stories about the children who were always eager to be press-ganged into labor at the garden center, but he’d never quite pictured such _life_ in them before he was faced with the reality. He continued, speaking slowly as he tried to untangle his thoughts, hyper-aware that this was a conversation between friends, not a therapy session. 

“I just didn't… I don't know. I didn't realize, I suppose, how much he missed them. It wasn't like we could really go seek them out, not when they were in London as far as we knew, but I–" Aziraphale stopped himself. He knew that wasn't a good road to go down, there wasn't any changing the past, the what-if's were only good if you didn't bash your head in with them, and if he was able to redirect himself, then he should….

Marjorie lay a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. The gesture was comforting—gentle and strong all at once—and Aziraphale couldn't help how his breath tore from his lungs at the sudden, shocking memory of Haistwell doing the same for him the night of the fire.

"I–" Aziraphale began, his gaze darting to Crowley's face. He’d managed to extract himself from the tangle of children and was now standing, still surrounded by his miniature assailants. The Them were pulling at Crowley's hands and coat, seemingly afraid to stop touching him as they nattered on about how Eve hired them to help her set up the newly built garden center building. Though he understood the urge to hold on and not let go for fear that Crowley would vanish never to return, Aziraphale watched Crowley's smile slowly turn from pleased to a sharp grimace even as he leaned more and more heavily to his right in a clear attempt to relieve the pressure building up in his bad hip and knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He was sure that the pain was building from the short, unexpected fall and the stint on the frozen ground, no matter that Crowley had welcomed both things with a laugh. 

Unable to stand by and watch Crowley hurt, Aziraphale chanced wading into the chaos. Pulling him close with a supportive arm around his waist, Aziraphale allowed Crowley to lean heavily onto him. He pressed a kiss to Crowley's temple when he felt Crowley sigh in gratitude, pleased that his overture was so readily accepted. The lanky man shivered and melted against him enough to worry Aziraphale just a little.

"My love, why don't you get yourself another drink? Ward off the cold." Aziraphale murmured _sotto voce,_ before turning his attention onto the kids and smiling as warmly as he could manage. Kids _really_ weren't his forte, they always seemed to sense that he was uncomfortable, no matter that he liked them well enough (setting aside that his fondness for them was usually from across the room or sitting quietly reading). But he could manage this much to give Crowley the break he so clearly needed. "How about you kids tell me about what you've been up to while we play that game over there? I need some partners who can teach me how to play since Crowley here won’t." Aziraphale winked obviously, inviting the kids to go along with him. 

Pepper looked around and upon spotting the rubber-band target game, puffed up in pride and quickly began to explain how it all worked, interrupted as they walked by excited shouts and boasts from Adam, loud hand gestures from Brian, and an impromptu physics lesson from Wensleydale. Aziraphale glanced back once over his shoulder to see Crowley and Marjorie standing close together. Marjorie grinned at him, waving him away with one hand while the other came up to cover her mouth, her eyes sparkling even as Crowley mouthed ‘thank you’. 

* * *

The kids’ sudden burst of energy swept Aziraphale away from the main thoroughfare towards the stand of games manned by RP Tyler, a rather grumpy man from the neighborhood watch, who liked to keep a glareful eye on Crowley and had, at least once, mentioned ne’er-do-wells wearing all black. 

(He'd only done it the one time, as far as Crowley knew, and had quickly shut up when he saw Aziraphale. The topic had never come up again when Aziraphale was around, Crowley was more than pleased to have noticed.)

Left behind with Marjorie, Crowley slunk over to a nearby pole to slump against. He crossed his legs and jutted out a hip to affect the perfect picture of cool, lazy leaning. Even if Marjorie already knew about his hip and how it acted up, it felt safer to not show her how much interacting with the Them had rattled him physically. Emotionally too, if he was going to be truthful about it; all their talk of Eve and how quiet she had been… it really didn't sound like her at all and Crowley couldn’t help but think of all the things that might have gone wrong in the process of rebuilding Eden. 

For the first time in months, the urge to pull out his phone and call her to make sure she was alright and taking care of herself was nearly overwhelming. He stifled it by reminding himself of the facts. 

She'd thrown him out.

She’d thrown him out and it'd been the right decision, of that he was sure. 

He'd already brought trouble to her doorstep, the fire was pretty clear evidence in case she was unclear about that. There was no arguing that that'd been what he agreed to when he first got a job with her. 

It made sense. 

It was _right_. 

She wasn't even his real mum, didn't have any obligation to love him or anything like that, it was _fine._

It still hurt though, and he wasn't sure he'd make it out on the other side so well if that conversation was anything like he knew it'd be in his bones. Crowley wasn't sure he'd be able to handle being flat out told she was better off without him, and would have rather she never found him under that apple tree in the first place with his hard-to-care-for and his rudeness and his snake….

"What's going on up there in that fool head of yours, love?" Marjorie cut through his swirling, sloshing thoughts in that beautifully no-nonsense way that somehow ended up sounding kind no matter what awful things he was thinking at the time. 

Crowley shrugged and Marjorie settled in to wait him out, sipping at her own hot drink with a placid expression on her face. She wouldn't rush him, but she wouldn't let him get away with deflections either. As much as Crowley hated those facts, he knew he needed that sort of treatment. It was excruciating, to be known down to the deep, dark, jagged pits of him by someone who only wanted to help and didn't get upset when he lashed out except to let him know his feelings were alright to have and to feel, but taking them out on anyone (even himself) wasn't acceptable. 

There were three things Crowley had recently learned would always be true; his hip ached in the cold, Aziraphale loved him, and Marjorie would wait him out with an ease born of a natural patience. 

“Any idea why the kids are here?” Crowley asked, trying desperately to stave off the conversation he could feel building. There was no reason why Marjorie would know the kids or why they were in Tadfield, so it was a conversational gambit doomed to—

“Oh, Adam is my nephew.”

Crowley blinked. 

“What?” 

Marjorie laughed and patted him on the arm. “I was wondering how you knew him and his friends actually.” 

“They lived near my– I mean, Eve’s place. In the city. I, uh, used to let them help out, play in the dirt and all that shit.”

“Crowley, dear, you’ll have to pardon my language, but what the fuck?” 

Crowley stared at Marjorie as Marjorie stared at Crowley and slowly all the upset and hurt that had been twisting Crowley’s gut drained away, leaving him feeling strangely light and shaky. 

“What the fuck?” He muttered, wiping one hand down his face wearily. 

“I suppose people aren’t lying when they say it’s a small world,” Marjorie mused, though she sounded just as put out by the discovery as Crowley felt. 

“For fuckin’ real.” 

They settled back into comfortable silence, broken only by quiet hums as they sipped at their drinks or said hello to people they knew as they passed by. 

Eventually, Crowley recalled that he’d actually needed to talk to Marjorie about the plans for the book club she and Aziraphale had been trying to get off the ground. There was no way he could be persuaded to read the books—though Aziraphale had mentioned perhaps reading them aloud to Crowley as he worked in the garden once spring returned—but he wanted to be supportive and thought maybe he could figure out something to cook for them. He’d enjoyed the cooking he and Marjorie did and wanted to do it more, but it felt so silly and pointless to go through so much effort when it was just he and Aziraphale at the cottage. 

He just had to… ask Marjorie if she thought it was a good idea. Right. That wasn’t awkward or weird at all. 

He could do that. 

“Margie,” he started, ignoring the sharp glare she shot his way, “I had a thought and I–”

“Azath– Shit, I mean, Tony. Hey.” 

The blood in Crowley’s veins turned to ice. 

He wasn’t supposed to ever hear from them again, wasn’t supposed to have to think about them anymore. It was all over, he was free, he was supposed to be– 

“Sarah, darling! I thought you were coming by later?” 

Crowley turned, desperately regretting wearing the skirt now. He felt laid bare despite his layers, like he'd just handed over a soft, vulnerable piece of himself for someone to hurt him with. Why was Dagon here? How had she known where to find him? Shit! Aziraphale!

His heart rate kicked up another few notches before exactly what Marjorie had said registered. 

“Sarah?” he hissed out, aware that he probably looked half-feral with fear. 

“Crowley, Sarah is my niece,” Marjorie said very slowly, “She’s just moved out of the city and is living a few towns over. I invited her and her little brother for the weekend.” 

Everything slotted into place in Crowley’s mind. Of course. He’d thought Marjorie felt familiar from the very beginning but knew they’d never met before. It wasn’t Marjorie at all, Crowley was remembering her sister; Dag– _Sarah’s_ mum. Who was apparently also Adam’s mum. Crowley’s already been kicked out when Adam came along, but he had distant memories of Sarah vanishing for a few days at a time in those early years of the gang, only to return sharp-edged and more prone to violence than ever. 

“Sarah, huh?” he asked, feeling oddly disconnected from himself. 

She nodded. “Crowley? Not Tony?” 

He returned the nod. “No one’s called me that since I got this.” He tapped the tattoo on his cheekbone. Sarah winced but nodded. 

“Well,” she said, smiling at him. “Would you like a ginger biscuit?” She held out a paper sheaf filled with small biscuits. 

Crowley shook his head. 

She shrugged and took one for herself, popping it in her mouth and chewing. “So, you live here now?” she asked, peering around at the people surrounding them. 

Crowley shrugged. Marjorie was looking at him and frowning lightly and it dawned on him that she had no clue what her niece had been involved in. Sarah caught his gaze and suddenly he could see the tension that thrummed through her. She was desperate for him to keep her secret, to keep their history to himself. 

Strangely, that fear made him feel leagues better. 

“Yeah,” he said, trying to force his own smile towards something at least natural-adjacent. “Me’n Aziraphale.” 

“Boyfriend?” She popped another biscuit in her mouth. 

Crowley nodded. “Uh, yeah.” 

“Nice,” she said. Then, a wicked grin crossed her face. “He got a sister?” 

That startled a laugh from Crowley. “Absolutely fuckin’ not.” 

“Ah, shame. We coulda been siblings instead of just neighbors.” Her smile seemed more real now, less terrified that he’d rip her entire world down around her ears and Crowley realized he was genuinely happy that Dagon had somehow managed to wriggle free from the hammer that had fallen on the rest of the Baratrum. She’d always been vicious, but never seemed to relish the life the same way the others had. Perhaps there was hope of her actually being happy away from it all. 

He sincerely hoped that was the case. 

* * *

After a few embarrassing defeats at the hands of Pepper and Wensleydale (who turned out to be a formidable duo), Aziraphale was forced to admit that he’d reached the limits of his ability to entertain children without backup. Hoping that Crowley had had enough of a break, he watched as the kids once more raced across the walkway and surrounded Crowley and Marjorie. Adam peeled away from the others, launching himself at a young woman Aziraphale hadn’t noticed until that moment. She caught him with a laugh, returning his hug and then ruffling his hair as he tried to fight her off. 

By the time he reached the group, the young woman, Marjorie, and the Them were walking away. The kids kept looking back over their shoulders as Crowley, but he waved at them and called that he’d see them again soon and they seemed to accept that promise. 

“Babysitter?” Aziraphale asked when he was close enough, tilting his head towards the young woman. 

Crowley shook his head, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he wrapped his arm across Aziraphale’s shoulder and once more tucked him in close. Aziraphale allowed himself to be reeled in, savoring the way Crowley always seemed to run cool after working up a bit of a sweat with the kids. 

“No one important,” Crowley said. 

Aziraphale hummed and nodded, feeling suddenly very tired. “How is Marjorie?” he asked, starting to walk towards where they had parked the Bentley. 

“Good, still on about you all reading Chaucer to start the club.” 

“Did you–” 

“Yes, I told you you said you’d rather die than read Chaucer for fun and that if she didn’t pick something from at least the eighteenth century, you’d walk.” 

“Crowley!” 

“Well, maybe I wasn’t that harsh, but I did tell her you were tired of Chaucer.” 

“Thank you, love.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YALL THERE IS ONE (1) MORE CHAPTER BEFORE THE EPILOGUE 
> 
> ***ONE***


	26. Of Deep Roots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here we are. The last regular chapter (there will be an epilogue in two weeks!). We really cannot say how much everyone's enthusiastic support has meant. We love you all so much and we're so excite for what the future holds for this story (more on that with the epilogue <3) 
> 
> We'll likely get quite a bit more emotional in the authors' note next time, you have been forewarned.

Crowley felt odd... floaty.

Disconnected.

It was a feeling he’d been trying to engage with more; ‘active listening to his own mind,’ Marjorie called it. Learning to recognize when the bad feelings are there and make space for them. He thought that was a little silly because the bad feelings already had space, they had all the space, sometimes they were so greedy there wasn’t space left for _him_.

That wasn’t the point though. The point was that he’d woken feeling slightly to the left of the world. It happened sometimes, less often than it used to though, and that felt like a victory. So, he’d taken some time to breathe into the space between himself and reality and then he’d leaned over, kissing the tip of Aziraphale’s nose. He slid from the warmth trapped between the soft flannel sheets they’d each insisted they only tolerated for the other’s sake and made his way downstairs, leaning against the wall as he went in deference to his stiff hip. There, he went about the business of the morning, starting the kettle boiling, misting the indoor plants, and braving the flurries to get the paper from the end of the lane. By the time he was settled atop the kitchen countertop with his mug of coffee, Aziraphale had emerged from their room.

Aziraphale blinked at him, always slow in the mornings, and picked up his own mug from the counter. Crowley had left a tea bag in it and the kettle was boiling so Aziraphale filled the mug and set it aside to steep. Crowley made a little noise in the back of his throat, words were always a little further away than he would like on days like this, and Aziraphale looked up at him with a grin.

“Yes, love?” he asked and, _oh,_ how Crowley loved him in the morning. It was a different sort of love than what he felt in the evening (wild and passionate and unrestrained) or the afternoon (mischievous and competitive) or the dark of night (needful and wanting and hungry for more than skin on skin). His love in the morning was soft and fond and felt like the way the sun looked when it shone through the thin petals of _Diphylleia grayi_ after a summer shower. Not that he’d be caught dead ever saying any of that aloud. He did have a reputation to maintain, even only to himself.

Aziraphale made a quiet, questioning sort of noise in the back of his throat, moving so that he stood between Crowley’s legs. The warmth of his stomach pressed against the inside of Crowley’s thighs, sending a shiver of pleasure of his spine. Crowley resisted the urge to wrap his legs around Aziraphale, knowing that with the cold outside his hip couldn’t take that sort of strain today. Just this was enough. Aziraphale’s touch grounded him, a steady anchor to which he could tie his mind. He still felt disconnected, but it was easier to peer into the real world, easier to force his mouth into motion and his hands up around Aziraphale’s shoulders, when there was something so blazingly warm lighting his way.

“You got in late last night,” he mumbled into the soft down of Aziraphale’s bedhead. He felt the desperate desire to press a kiss to his head and then, realizing there was no reason not to do so, allowed himself that simple pleasure. Aziraphale leaned into the kiss and Crowley smiled. He didn’t mind floating so much when it was like this, slow and safe, with a guaranteed soft landing at the end.

“Yes,” Aziraphale eventually said, his voice slightly muffled against Crowley’s chest. “Eve and I got to talking and I’m afraid time rather got away from us.”

There was a moment, a flash in which Crowley could feel his tired muscles trying to tense, wanting to lock up, to tighten until he was nothing more than a violin through which his thoughts might wail into the abyss. He breathed through it, thinking of Marjorie’s raspy voice and the way a pale blue morning glory would unfold to follow the sun before curling back upon itself.

“Dear?” Aziraphale asked. He stepped back slightly, just far enough to lean over and pick up his tea. He took the string and dipped the bag twice before removing it and laying it on the edge of the sink to drain.

Crowley swallowed and smiled, the flower in his mind closed once more and the tension retreated for the moment. “Sorry,” he said, reeling himself a bit closer to the present moment. “That’s nice. How–” he paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “How is she doing?”

Aziraphale’s own smile turned soft and a little sad, though there was no blame there. “You really should come talk to her,” he said. He took a sip of his tea and grimaced. Crowley reached behind himself and pulled the little pot of honey around where Aziraphale could use it. “Oh, you’re a dear,” Aziraphale said, then, pulling no punches as was his wont, “She misses you.”

Crowley snorted and immediately regretted it.

Aziraphale set his cup of tea down.

“Why won’t you believe me?” he asked, “I haven't lied to you.”

Crowley drew his legs up onto the counter-proper, tucking them up to his chest so he could lean down and rest his chin on his left knee, hand on top of his knee and his nose pressed into the back of it.

“I don’t _not_ believe you,” he muttered. “‘S just, I dunno, not the way... stuff... works.” He flailed his right hand lazily as if it were something simple, some law of the universe to be mentioned offhandedly as ‘stuff’. He was sure it was frustrating to Aziraphale, but it all seemed so clear to Crowley.

Aziraphale studied him for a long moment before sighing and reclaiming his mug once more. “Alright, love,” he said. “You’re wrong and you know it, even if you don’t want to believe it.” Crowley opened his mouth to object, but Aziraphale kept talking, “But, I won’t make you talk about it. Just know that she asks after you every time I go, even asked if I could bring recent pictures of you next time.”

Crowley couldn’t think of that just then. It all seemed like something out of a misremembered dream, one he’d wake up from filled with a _yearning_ for something so normal and easy, so he set it aside to be worried over later.

After a few minutes of silence, Aziraphale stepped closer again. “May I kiss you, dear?” he asked.

Crowley nodded, though he did not lift his chin from his knee.

Aziraphale's smile was the sun, he thought as it dawned across the other man’s face, powered from within by a fusion Crowley could never hope to match, could only maybe reflect back in a pale imitation. (For the first time he thought that maybe the moon wasn’t worthy of the sun. It wasn’t the moon’s fault, not really. It hadn’t changed, Crowley had just never felt like the moon before.)

Shoving those thoughts away to be addressed the next time he and Marjorie met, Crowley returned the smile as Aziraphale cupped the sides of his face and leaned up to press a tender kiss, first to his forehead, then each cheek, and finally to his lips. Crowley gasped into the kiss, feeling strangely undone by the simple gesture. Aziraphale caught his lower lip between his teeth, gentle but with enough pressure for him to feel. His muscles relaxed further and when Aziraphale pulled away he felt almost ready to face the day.

“I thought we might decorate the tree today,” Aziraphale said, still holding his face. Crowley nodded. He would have agreed to anything just then, he thought, if only to stay close to Aziraphale for a moment longer. Aziraphale seemed to sense this because he dropped another light kiss to Crowley’s lips before stepping back and helping him down from the counter.

Crowley staggered, leaning back against the countertop when both feet hit the floor. His hip had stiffened and he would need to stretch if he didn’t want to be completely immobile tomorrow.

“Alright, dear?”

“‘Mfine,” Crowley said, “I brought the tree in yesterday.” It was a real, actual Christmas pine tree because neither of them had ever had one in recent memory and Crowley wanted this to be the perfect Christmas. He’d spent much of the last week attempting (and failing) ginger biscuit recipes to use in building a miniature version of the cottage to surprise Aziraphale.

Aziraphale's eyes lit up. “Oh jolly good!” he exclaimed, and Crowley laughed.

“Jolly? Really, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale blushed but did not look repentant. “It’s seasonally appropriate,” he sniffed, and just like that the malaise Crowley had been fighting through all morning lifted. He grinned and tucked his arm around Aziraphale's middle.

“How the fuck did I fall for you?” he asked as he steered them towards the den, “Cheesy bastard.”

“Just because I appreciate– Oh, _Crowley_.” He’d seen the tree and his reaction was everything Crowley could have hoped; all wide eyes and parted lips and one hand raised toward his heart in awe. It really was an impressive tree, if Crowley did say so himself.

Crowley fiddled with the wireless, searching for a station playing Christmas music while Aziraphale made a few trips out to the Bentley to retrieve the boxes of ornaments Crowley had found at the local charity shop. They were gaudy, plastic things he wouldn’t be caught dead looking at any other time of year, but as Aziraphale began to open the boxes and make little noises of happiness, he found he rather liked them. Aziraphale was delighted to discover the lights tucked in alongside the ornaments were a tangle and happily set to unwrapping them, checking each bulb while Crowley sorted the ornaments by color and shape (because, dammit, this was going to be _the best tree in all of Britain_ or his name wasn’t Anthony J Crowley).

Then, Aziraphale vanished into the kitchen and returned with a plate filled with the scraps of Crowley’s latest gingerbread misadventure. They put the plate on the table and passed the newly detangled strand of lights back and forth around the tree as the radio crackled and popped its way through something suitably classic. Aziraphale started adding ornaments while Crowley futzed with the lights, making sure each strand was equidistant from the others. As he worked he waited, knowing it wouldn’t be long before Aziraphale found the–

“Oh, Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed. Crowley’s face hurt he was smiling so broadly, but he forced the expression away, turning to face Aziraphale with the coolest, most unaffected look he could manage.

“Yes?” he asked.

Aziraphale was holding the only box Crowley had ventured into a high street shop for, it accounted for nearly half of the cost of the ornaments, but it was perfect, exactly what Crowley had been hoping to find.

“You bought me the stars?”

Well, it was true, Crowley thought, but did he really have to say it like that? Like it was some huge romantic gesture and not a twenty-pound fifty cardboard box of celestial-themed ornaments that he’d hurriedly scrawled _Angels belong in the stars_ across with a magic marker when he was tired and feeling especially sentimental last week?

“They’re lovely,” Aziraphale said, eyes bright. “Here, help me hang them.”

So Crowley did and he stopped trying to hide the smile because he remembered he didn't _have_ to keep it hidden and safe. He even hummed along a little when he recognized the next song.

When only a few ornaments remained, Aziraphale popped back to the kitchen once more, taking the empty plate with him. When he returned he was holding out a little box to Crowley.

“I didn’t know you’d already had a similar idea,” he said with a little laugh, “But, I picked this up on my way home.” Crowley took the package from him and pulled the brown paper from the box. Nestled in the bubble wrap inside, there was a little metal knight dressed all in black armor with a delicate crown embossed on the shield and a loop for a hook atop his head.

Crowley peered at it, bemused by the incongruity of the figure.

“A knight?” he asked.

“Eve was showing me that wonderful little King Eve you made for her and I thought you deserved a knight. You’ve protected us all so well and– Crowley!”

Crowley had gone pale and collapsed back on the sofa, every muscle in his body shaking.

“Why?” he managed to bite out past his locked jaw. Aziraphale sat down on the sofa beside him, close enough that the heat from his body washed across Crowley, but carefully not touching.

“Why what? The knight? I didn’t think– I mean you’re so dashing and you take care of us all and I thought–”

“Not– not the knight,” Crowley said, the floating feeling was back, trying to pull him away. It wasn’t the sky waiting now though. He could almost smell the pit of tar bubbling in his gut.

He didn’t want to be caught up in that, didn’t want to leave this place, he was happy here, happy beside Aziraphale.

Aziraphale.

His hand jerked out and snatched up Aziraphale's closest one, locking around it in a desperate, taloned grip.

“Crowley, you’re worrying me,” Aziraphale said and Crowley realized he’d been speaking for a while. “What do you need?”

“Why did she keep it?” Crowley asked. “It was trash, I– I think I found it in the rubbish.”

Aziraphale sucked in a sharp breath and Crowley was relieved because that meant he understood what the problem was, a wonderful thing when Crowley himself had no clue why this was happening.

“Crowley, parents keep the silly little things that their kids make for them.”

The tar bubbled away, Crowley could feel it splashing against him, each popping, boiling bubble sticking to his skin, little black flecks like burning snake scales.

“That’s not–” he tried, swallowed and resisted the urge to wipe his hand down his legs. The tar was surely visible to Aziraphale now. “That’s not right.”

“Crowley, can I touch–” Crowley nodded before Aziraphale finished the question, and less than a breath later Crowley was wrapped entirely in Aziraphale’s arms, tucked in close so he could hear Aziraphale’s heartbeat and breath and feel the way his chest rose and fell. “Match me,” Aziraphale murmured, “I’ll keep time, don’t worry about that.”

Crowley sketched a nod, a jagged little jerk of his head against Aziraphale’s chin, and closed his eyes, listening hard.

Aziraphale’s breath was slow and steady and sure and, as Crowley forced his lungs to expand and contract in synchronization with them, he slowly became more aware of his physical body. Yes, his legs were sore, but they weren’t burning, there was no tar or scales, only the tired muscles of the panic attack that he only realized now had been building all morning.

“Better?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley nodded again.

“Good,” Aziraphale said, “Can I say something and trust that you’ll tell me if it’s too much?”

Crowley thought about it. Sometimes he couldn’t trust himself to say when something hurt or was too much, but he didn’t think today was one of those days. He was too tired of hurting to let anything happen that might make it worse. He’d wanted today to be perfect.

He nodded.

“Ok, one squeeze if you want me to stop.” He waited and Crowley nodded.

Aziraphale took another few moments to just breathe then he tightened his arms around Crowley and began to speak.

“Eve loves you, dear, she thinks of you as her son and has told me so on a number of occasions.” The words were blunt, honest in a way Crowley could not misinterpret or deny and they _hurt_. Crowley’s hand twitched, he didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to know, because if that was true, if Eve really loved him like that then–

“Crowley, listen to me. Squeeze my hand if you have to,” Aziraphale murmured softly, words no less affectionate for being stern. Crowley tapped his fingers along the back of Aziraphale’s hand and loosened his grip. He didn’t need to squeeze yet, might not at all if he kept focusing on breaths and heartbeats. “Alright then. Crowley, I love you. I know you know that and when you forget, I’ll be here to remind you. Moreover, I think you deserve to be loved, just like you think I do. My dear, you deserve to be loved _unconditionally_ , just the way you love me.”

Crowley sucked in a sharp breath that cut at his throat, already raw from the shapeless words that wanted to escape, and opened his mouth to protest, but Aziraphale smoothly cut him off so that Crowley could only let out the breath slow and shuddering, as Aziraphale spoke. “Hush, don’t say you don’t, love. You _do_ and I’ll say it until I’m sore in the throat and there’s no more air in my lungs. I know you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop or for something to happen that you can point to and say, _I expected that, see?_ But Crowley, it won’t happen, or if it does, it’ll be because you’ve picked up the shoe to drop it yourself. I won’t love you any less then though, and I won’t leave you…”

Aziraphale trailed off, swallowing and breathing in a way that seemed less deliberate to Crowley, as if he were fighting back something else that he wanted to say. They sat in silence for a bit, listening as a man on the radio crooned about being home for Christmas. Then, Aziraphale nodded slightly against Crowley’s head, clearly having come to a decision. “Crowley, Eve loves you too. She cried when she threw you out, she hadn’t wanted to. And she _has_ called you her son more than once. Real family… _real_ family doesn’t abandon you. So, Eve and I won’t. No matter how many shoes drop. You could dump a bucket of shoes down the stairs and I’ll be right next to you anyway, love. For better or for worse, always and foreve–” Aziraphale shut up the moment he felt a weak squeeze of his hand, barely more than all of Crowley’s fingertips digging into his skin and thumb in the center of his palm.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, curling around the shaking man in his lap, carding fingers slowly through his hair and ignoring the wet spot blooming on his shirt where Crowley had buried his head. He didn’t say anything more, just like he promised. Instead, he breathed deep and slow, waiting for Crowley to catch on and match him, he always did when it wasn’t a panic attack, and this wasn’t one it was just… too much all at once.

That was okay, they had all the time in the world for too-much-at-once to become manageable.

He could wait.

* * *

The kettle was on with a click of the hotplate and the sound of construction was muffled. There wasn't much left anymore, to be perfectly honest; the insurance had paid out well enough once the police corroborated the fact that Eden had been burnt down by someone who didn't have an eye on the payout from it. Her mobile sat heavy in her jumper pocket, never further than a few feet away from her, even after months of calling—once every two weeks, on a schedule she forced herself to stick to because she was willing to make a nuisance of herself but she wasn't willing to push Crowley away even further—and her fingers twitched to take it out and check again in case Crowley called or texted or _anything_.

Eve didn't, of course. She had more self control than that (even if only by the thinnest margin). She hadn't turned her ringer to silent ever since the fire and everything had gone up including, nearly, her son– the kettle whistled and Eve scrubbed at her face underneath her reading glasses, annoyed she even needed them, ever-raging against the fact she was getting older and her body seemed quite happy to just plod along with the passage of time. She laughed under her breath at herself, _her son_... Crowley hadn't ever told her anything about what was going on.

He hadn't trusted her.

Hadn't trusted her not to kick him out, hadn't trusted that she loved him, hadn't trusted anything at all. There was a certain type of pang in her chest every time she thought about how she'd lived up to that wariness, earned it all right back at the stupid, terrible scare tactic she'd used. It'd worked, but the minute she said it she knew it had been the wrong thing to say. She'd tried to apologize but… well, she didn't have any of that trust she'd just shattered after a decade of trying to build it up.

Shutting off the hotplate, Eve let the water in the kettle cool and watered all the plants in the massive window-wall of the Shed. That's what Crowley had always called it, and maybe that should have been the first sign he never really felt comfortable here, hadn't felt like he'd belonged. As bad as his birth mother had been, Eve thought to herself bitterly, at least she had the decency to know it.

She sighed, her fingers itched, and she ignored her phone in her pocket as set about making herself some tea. She could call again next week, at least then she could listen to the voicemail, she had it memorized, the stupid silly thing.

_Hey, this is Anthony Crowley. You what to do. Do it with style._

Every time it made her hiccough a laugh-cry and it was the only time she heard his voice at all these days, and thinking about it made her fingers hurt as she ignored her phone. She wouldn't harass him, she wouldn't demand anything, and if Aziraphale or Crowley ever told her that her calls were unwelcome well… she'd stop. It'd hurt, desperately badly, Eve thought with a frown, but she'd do it if told, if it hurt Crowley, cause it'd kill her to know she was _still_ hurting him.

With her tea in hand she sat in a new chair over in the corner by a standing lamp, placing her tea on a side table, all three of those new things made the Shed —Crowley's room— feel cramped and crowded and, for the life of her, Eve couldn't figure out why he'd stayed in the first place. Sure, the rent was way cheaper than the rest of London, but if he'd wanted to leave there was nothing stopping him. Why did he stay and work at Eden this whole time? If it wasn't for the little family she'd apparently gone senile imagining, then what was it that kept him here?

"Oh, Adam," Eve whispered aloud to herself, followed by a heavy sigh as she sat in the armchair and pulled her quilting into her lap, hand sewing all sorts of tiny pieces together to recreate the family quilt as best she could. "I wish you were here. I can't say you'd understand the kid any better than I did, but at least you wouldn't have driven him away…."

She missed him, Adam. Kay and Abe as well. Eve missed _all_ her boys with a quiet, grief-ridden desperation. The first three she'd lost all at once to a freak accident, the last she'd lost through her own missteps and, possibly, to an utter lack of connection in the first place.

The yellow connected to yellow connected to brown to create a bright, wide sunflower she'd eventually stitch into a thick blue backing, and she'd tack down each petal again at its tip rather than at the base where it was sewn onto the brown center. Her eyes blurred and her hands shook, slow at first and then badly enough with her quiet sobs at the empty ache in her chest that she had to put down her needle for fear of sticking her fingers with it.

And still her fingers itched for the phone in her pocket where it burnt into her hip through her jumper and her shirt and her dungarees still on from work. Sniffling, Eve tossed her glasses to the side table by her tea and shoved the balls of her palms into her eyes, pressing harder and harder until the pressure there kept her from crying any new tears. It wasn't that it felt good, but more that it felt like she deserved it, in a roundabout way… she'd deal with that thought later.

She'd talked with people plenty, professionals and not, after her husband and sons had been taken from her, she knew the patterns she dove into headfirst with grief, she knew exactly the types of things she should be doing now to mitigate those thoughts. And she would, she'd deal with it in the morning, but sometimes… sometimes there was a certain sort of satisfaction to be had with feeling all the sadness your body was capable of feeling all at once.

Carefully, deliberately, Eve reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She'd call Darby, it was the middle of the day and most were at work, but Darby had never once in their long friendship missed one of her calls, even if it was just ens' general worry at the world that did it. She was still sad, of course, but at least she could take another sip of tea and pretend to be alright for a little longer over the phone. Eve was happy, not for the first time, that Darby was categorically, utterly terrible at figuring out what her face was doing over a phone call.

As Eve searched through her contacts for Darby, a slow scroll that was hard to see with slightly blurry, old eyes, her phone darkened until all that was left on the screen were buttons to accept or reject a call, and a name that made her heart catch in her throat and her eyes tear up again.

"Hello? Crowley?" She whispered into the phone, feeling all sorts of out of place. This felt like a phone call that should have come at night, it always did in the movies at least, bad news came in the middle of the day, good news and heartwarming family reunion calls were picked up at night by the hearth with a nice little fire going. She couldn't help the next words that fell out of her mouth to fill the painful silence, even as her heart flipped and damn near flew out of her entirely with how thrilled she was he'd called at all.

He'd _called._

He called _her_ , didn't even wait for her to call again, _Crowley called Eve_ and that felt like a thing that was too big, too much, to be true.

She could hear him breathing, slightly thick sounding and before she could stop herself she said, "Now, don't you start crying, because then I'll start and we'll both be useless." Another huff, still a bit teary sounding but she didn’t care because it was her boy, _her son_ , and he’d called her.

“Before you say anything,” she said, suddenly filled with the certainty that if she didn’t say what she’d wanted to for months she might die, “I’m sorry. I never wanted you to think you were unloved or unwanted or any of it but I said a stupid fucking thing and I…” She trailed off, unable to find words big enough for her remorse.

“I love you, Crowley.” Her voice shook but Eve felt lighter than she’d ever thought would be possible again. Across the phone line, his breath caught. She heard another voice, too distant to be understandable but clearly Aziraphale. There was a shuffle, a shift, a sharp inhale and she thought he might hang up, that she’d pushed too far already. Then, just as she was preparing to apologize;

“Uh, yeah, me too.”

Eve’s heart soared. New words. Something besides, _Hey, this is Anthony Crowley. You what to do. Do it with style,_ that she could hold tight to her heart. Better than that even, he still cared about her, no matter that she’d hurt him.

“Eve?” he asked and she realized she’d be quiet for too long, fingers gripping her phone so tightly they ached. She set it on the little table and tapped the ‘speaker phone’ icon.

“Good,” she said. “That’s good. Now, I want you to listen to me and listen good, okay?”

He mumbled an assent. Oh, she could just picture him. He’d have bags under his eyes and probably wasn’t wearing nearly enough layers for the weather. She wanted so badly to kiss his brow, though they’d never done that before.

She’d planned to apologize again, to promise him it wasn’t true and he always had a place in her home. But, what she said instead was, “Thank you for my photos and,” a laugh escaped, “The damned fish. I’ve never known carnival fish to live so long. Did you know Adam promised me they’d be gone before the year was up? It’s been nearly twelve years!”

His breathing sounded better, less tense, and Eve set aside her thoughts of apology. She could do that again later. Right now she wanted to talk to her boy.

“Did I ever tell you how they got their names?” she asked, and when he made a negative noise, “Oh, it’s a good one. Kay had just read oh some silly thing, I don’t remember the name now….”

* * *

Aziraphale lingered in the kitchen, slowly stirring honey into his tea and listening to Eve’s muffled voice through the phone speaker. He couldn’t understand what she was saying but Crowley’s shoulders had crept down from his ears as she went on, so Aziraphale was sure she was saying the right things.

“Yeah,” Crowley mumbled. He swiped one hand down his face, pausing to dig the heel of his palm into each eye in succession. “I shouldn’t’ve– I mean–”

He fell silent again, listening.

“I didn’t mean to,” Crowley said very quietly. “Eve, you have to believe me, I never wanted any of that.”

Aziraphale set his spoon in the sink and picked up his mug. He reached over and squeezed Crowley’s bicep, tilting his head towards the living room when Crowley dragged his gaze away from the tiles.

“If you need me,” Aziraphale promised in a whisper. He held Crowley’s gaze until the other man nodded, a tiny smile curling the corner of his mouth despite the tension that still thrummed through him. Then, sure that Crowley would call for him if necessary, Aziraphale retreated to the living room to give them privacy.

It was strange stepping back into the living room. They’d left all the packaging from the ornaments strewn about before, first in favor of talking on the couch and then when Crowley decided that the only thing for it was baking more ginger biscuits. The radio was still playing quietly and the lights on the tree twinkled merrily. Outside the window, Aziraphale could see that the flurries of the morning had shifted towards actual snow and there was now a blanket coating the world.

From the kitchen, he heard a sudden startled bark of laughter, followed by, “That was _not_ my fault and you know it, old lady!” Something in Aziraphale’s chest eased.

He set his mug down on a coaster and began gathering up the packaging, carefully matching the protective wrappings with the boxes they’d come in so they could use it all again when it was time to take the tree down. He put the boxes away in the tiny spare bedroom cum office before returning to the living room and looking around.

Crowley was still in the kitchen, he’d not be observed. Padding across to the tree, Aziraphale picked the little knight up from where it had been abandoned on the coffee table.

“My apologies,” he whispered to the tiny figure, “I’m sure he really does like you.” He thought about the way Crowley’s long fingers had trailed across the delicately carved details. “How would you feel about protecting a surprise for me?”

The knight did not respond, but Aziraphale was sure he’d approve. From his pocket he withdrew a small velvet sachet. It had arrived in the mail along with a thick letter from Michael in which she told him in no uncertain terms that he and Crowley were to visit again soon, ‘after everything was set’ and also ‘hurry up please, I like the dresses for best for late spring events’.

He did so hope that he could call her with good news soon.

The tie on the sachet slipped from his fingers the first time he tried to open it and he chuckled to himself, cursing his nerves. This wasn’t even the bit he was meant to be nervous about! Eventually he managed to open it and upend it over his open hand, allowing a gold ring to fall into his palm. Despite the risk of Crowley re-entering the room, he took a moment to admire it. The ring was as familiar to him as his own reflection; his father had worn it Aziraphale’s entire childhood. He’d always been prone to fidgeting with his hands when nervous, a habit Aziraphale had inherited, and the wedges of the ring were worn nearly smooth from decades of being twisted around a finger. The design was still clear as day though; a sailor’s knot, apparently worked in two strands, though Aziraphale knew it was actually a single cord tied around itself.

“That’s love,” his father had told him when Aziraphale asked about the ring as a child. He’d clearly not understood because his father had laughed and ruffled his hair, pulling out a long scrap of rope. “It’s called a sailor’s knot,” he’d explained, deft fingers rapidly working the rope as Aziraphale watched with wide eyes. “They’re very old, possibly the oldest knot, though no one knows, of course.” He’d handed Aziraphale the newly formed circle then and even now, decades later, Aziraphale still remembered his amazement because with the ends tucked in it was nearly impossible to tell where the knot began and ended.

“Why’s it on your ring?” He’d asked. “How’s it love?”

His father had laughed again and slipped the knot around Aziraphale’s wrist, tickling his sides before scooping him up onto his hip. Aziraphale didn’t recall anything else of that day, but he was sure he’d never gotten an answer to his question.

Now, tracing his fingers across the two strands, wrapped around each other, two distinct parts of a single whole, he thought he understood.

Swallowing back the emotions that wanted to rise in his chest, he slipped the ring around the knight’s head, where it settled like a shining circlet.

“Perfect. You look very handsome.”

“Oi, who are you calling handsome!” Crowley called from the kitchen. He sounded like he was smiling and Aziraphale’s heart soared.

He didn’t want to ask just yet. He couldn’t get the idea of asking after they’d opened all their other presents–with Crowley warm and safe and smiling–out of his head. So, he quickly hung the knight with his crown from a branch in the center of the tree and turned around.

Crowley was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed across his chest. He looked tired, but pleased.

“Well?” he asked. “Who do I have to fight for my boyfriend’s affection?”

Aziraphale laughed. He slipped the velvet sachet into his pocket and crossed to Crowley.

“No one at all, dear.”

“Well, s’not true and you know it. I know for a fact you’d leave me if Forster knocked on our door.”

Aziraphale wrapped him up in his arms, reveling in feeling him so loose and happy. “Well, you know how I feel about the humanists and I do rather enjoy his theory that the solution to class disparity is to be found in queer love and I _have_ been meaning to reread–”

“Ah, I can’t take it!” Crowley moaned into the crook of his neck. “I’ve fallen in love with a dork. Tell me,” he demanded, pulling back only far enough so that he could catch Aziraphale’s gaze, “Will it always be like this?”

Aziraphale smiled down at him. “Yes, dear heart,” he promised, “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Diphylleia grayi is a skeleton flower, the petals are entirely clear when wet.


	27. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit yall. holy shit.

“Stop it, Michael. I know how to tie a bowtie!” Eve paused with her hand on the doorknob, waiting to see if Aziraphale was actually upset or just grousing at his sister. Aziraphale and Michael were in the room across the hall from her own destination. Across the short distance, Eve could just barely hear Michael speaking. The words weren’t clear, but the teasing tone was.

“Pardon you!” Aziraphale snapped and now Eve could hear the smile in his voice. “ _I_ actually paid attention when father was teaching us. You were staring at Davey Wilson.” An indistinguishable response followed by Aziraphale’s laughter. “Yes, he was cute, if you like rugged sailor types.”

Lucky thing Aziraphale clearly didn’t share his sister’s taste, Eve thought. Crowley was many wonderful things, but a ‘rugged sailor type’ would never be one of them.

Assured that Aziraphale was well taken care of for now, Eve opened the door and slipped into Crowley’s dressing room. It was a tiny space, probably a converted closet to be honest, and packed full of extra chairs and music stands and all the other odds and ends that community centers in small towns seemed to accumulate. Crowley stood in the very center of the room, in front of a floor length mirror in a vest top and pants. He paused what he was doing and leaned back so he could see who’d entered.

“‘Lo,” he muttered, turning back to the mirror.

Eve approached, watching as Crowley licked the tip of an eyeliner pencil and started on his left eye, carefully resting the heel of his hand on his cheek to keep it steady. Eve watched in silence, not wanting to mess him up and make him start over. When he was nearly finished, she picked up the white silk shirt draped across the chair behind him and smoothed her hand across it. White, she thought with a smile. She’d spotted Aziraphale’s suit earlier and knew he was in a black and charcoal number.

She held it out to Crowley and he quickly shrugged it on, shimmying his shoulders back and forth a few times to settle it.

“Hold your hair back,” Eve told him. He scooped the french braid up and over one side of his head, careful not to disturb the little crystals that glinted in the light.

Starting from the bottom, Eve buttoned the shirt. When she reached the top she fussed with the collar a bit, adjusting it so it lay perfectly against his throat. She could just barely see the edges of his constellation tattoo peeking out around the sides of his neck and when she was done with the collar she paused, resting one thumb against the dark ink.

“Crowley, I–”

He took a rapid step back, holding up one finger and jabbing it in her direction.

“Oh no you don’t!”

Eve blinked.

“What do you mean? Oh no I don’t what?” It was hard to hold back her smile. Crowley knew her too well.

He turned back to the mirror and set his braid down, carefully avoiding messing up the collar she’d just arranced. He glared at her in the glass.

“No emotional stuff! I have eye makeup on.”

“And I don't?” Eve pointed to her own made-up face.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “No one will be looking at you!” Then, seeming to realize what he’d just said, “I mean, obviously you look amazing, you always look–”

“Stop while you’re ahead,” Eve advised and Crowley sputtered to a halt. “And I’ll be standing _between_ the grooms. I think a few people might spot me.”

Crowley made a noise halfway between _pshaw_ and _gnye._ “And?” he asked, “ _Aziraphale_ will be there, no one is looking anywhere else.”

Silence fell across them as they each processed what he’d just said. Crowley blushed darkly, across his ears and the back of his neck. Eventually, the silence snapped and they both descended into laughter. Crowley clutched at Eve’s shoulder for support, cackling and her face already hurt she’d smiled so much. She’d be sore tomorrow, she just knew it.

When they recovered a bit, Crowley looked in the mirror and heaved a sigh of relief that he’d not smudged his eyeliner. Except, when he turned his head Eve spotted–

“Here,” she said, reaching up to take his chin and holding him gently still. She tilted his head down so she could reach and licked her thumb, using it to rub at a smudge he’d somehow gotten on his cheekbone. He pulled a disgusted face, but made no move to attempt escape.

She kept rubbing the spot long after the smudge was gone, enjoying him allowing the care as much as she was enjoying being able to care for him again.

“I’m making the right choice, right?” Crowley asked after a little bit. He’d slumped over a bit so she wasn’t having to reach as high. “This isn’t stupid?”

Eve laughed, jiggling his chin back and forth in a tiny head shake. “You’ve been stupid for him since you said yes, you’d tutor him instead of getting laid like you’d planned.”

“Eve,” he groaned.

She grinned at him and let his chin go. “I’m not blind, kid.”

“Well, can you blame me?” Crowley asked, leaning around Eve to pick up his trousers. He fought his way into them with his usual disregard for the direction that limbs were meant to bend while Eve stood back and watched with a smile.

“Skirt would have been easier,” she said.

Crowley snorted. “Have you _seen_ how much wedding dresses cost these days? This isn’t nineteen fuckin’ forty-one or whenever it was you got hitched.”

She flicked his ear and watched as he yelped and simultaneously tried to hold the wounded ear and wriggle the trousers the last few inches over his bum.

“And no,” she said, “I can’t blame you. Aziraphale is very handsome. Some might say a catch, a prize, the cream of the crop, the peak, a paragon among–"

“You’re trying to mock me, but it’s not going to work,” Crowley told her very seriously. “Can’t be mocked if I agree with you.”

He picked up his suit jacket and put it on, leaving the buttons undone as he reached up to fiddle with his hair again. No matter how he tried to contain it, there were always flyaway curls. Eve loved those little flyaways.

After a few seconds his eyes darted to hers in the mirror and away again.

“What if I don’t know how to be a husband?” he asked.

Eve shrugged. “You don’t.”

“Eve. That’s– that’s not comfo– I don’t want to hear that!”

Oh, how Eve loved him. “It’s true. No one does. Aziraphale doesn’t either. You’re both going to fuck it up sometimes. You’ll keep something from him and he’ll not trust you over something else and you’ll fight.”

“Shit. Shit. What if–”

Eve stepped close, right up to his side, and wrapped her arm around his waist in a sideways hug, meeting and holding his gaze in the mirror.

“You’re going to fight and he’s going to be angry at you sometimes and you’ll fall asleep wanting to smother him with a pillow and then in the morning you’ll make coffee and turn the kettle on for him and you’ll talk about whatever silly thing it was and it’ll be okay.”

“Yeah?” Crowley’s voice shook a little.

Eve nodded. “Yeah. I promise. You don’t have to be anything but yourself to be a good husband. You love that boy and he loves you and you’re both going to do your damndest not to fuck it up. That’s the most important thing.”

Crowley closed his eyes and nodded, sniffing sharply once.

Eve leaned up and tucked the last few flyaways into his braid, pausing to twist one of the little crystals more securely into place.

“I’ll leave you to finish getting ready. There’s another anxious mess I should go see.”

Crowley nodded again, taking a long shaky breath. He raised one arm and squeezed Eve’s shoulders before letting her step away. Already the worry was fading back into a buzzing, nervous sort of excitement.

Just before the door closed behind Eve, she paused and looked back at Crowley. He grinned at her in the mirror, eyes bright and smile wide. She returned the smile.

“I’m proud of you,” she said softly. “I love you and I’m so happy for you.”

Crowley’s smile grew with each word, even as he reached up to try and stop the tears from ruining all his hard work with the eyeliner pencil.

“No fair,” he whined, but Eve was already letting the door close behind her.

* * *

Aziraphale's eyes shone in the crisp spring air, and Crowley decidedly _wasn't_ crying, thank you very much. He just… it was bright out, is all, and he wasn't wearing his glasses. And really, could anyone blame him for tearing up a bit, he was looking directly into the sun, after all.

"Now, I have been made aware that the grooms both wrote their own vows. Crowley's half-way to tearing up and I have money riding on him breaking first, so you start, Aziraphale," Eve sniped gently and a light-hearted laugh went through the crowd. Crowley himself was quite _fine_ thank you (and really, Eve was a dirty cheat saying what she had in the dressing room knowing she had that bet).

"Can't believe my mum is officiating, isn't that illegal or something?" Crowley muttered under his breath to Aziraphale who chuckled and squeezed his fingers, his smile so soft and so _happy_ as he looked at Crowley that he could have sworn his heart stopped then and there.

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale scolded happily in that way he did when he didn't _really_ disapprove and, in fact, generally enjoyed whatever it was Crowley was doing but felt he had to pretend otherwise. "Oh, _Crowley_ , I love you," he said, and no matter how many times Crowley heard it, it felt like new all over again, like the sun coming out and the first rainbow.

Aziraphale cleared his throat and spoke just a bit louder, his voice easily carrying over the assembled crowd. "There are so many ways to measure a lifetime, I think. Before and after all kinds of things, before university and after, before meeting a best friend and after, or even before a near-death experience and after. But I think my favorite delineation is before and after Anthony J Crowley. In BC, or Before Crowley," Aziraphale paused to smile a bit wryly at Crowley's snort of laughter, his eyes sparkling just as happy as before, "there were so many things that were important to me. What other people thought of me, how I was perceived by my family, constant deadlines, so many little worries that grew into mountains before I could handle them. But After Crowley, my life lit up. Without my concern or consent, really.”

Crowley gripped his hands tightly, sure that if he let go he’d float away.

"I think I might have been too scared to let it, if I knew what you were doing. Sneaking into my life the way you did and right into my heart all the while. You… you put in the effort, my dear. For some stranger asking for your help —and don't you try to fool me, you never let me pay for your tutoring!— you made charts and you told me about the stars and how to remember all the little tricks I needed to shape my life into what I wanted it to be. In the course of a handful of months, less than that really, you'd done more for me than quite a many others.”

Aziraphale was matching his grip, fingers tightly threaded through his and Crowley finally, finally understood how a handfast could be permanent. He thought he’d feel Aziraphale’s hands around his until the day he died.

"So this is my vow to you, Crowley, one I want you to hold in your heart and know it to be true. And on the days it is harder to believe, I want you to come to me and I will repeat it for you until it sounds like the truth it is again." Aziraphale sniffed and straightened in that tell-tale way of a particularly British man doing his best not to tear up and keep his voice level. Aziraphale was exceptionally good at it.

"Crowley, I love you. I will always love you, even when I am cross with you, even when we don't get along, I will love you. There is no force in this world or beyond that could keep me from loving you. From this day forward, and every new day I will make this vow again and again, I will have you as my spouse. In better times we will celebrate and in worse times we will hold each other; when we are rich, we will be rich in each other and even when we are poor, we will never be poorer for having come together. When you are sick I will care for you and when you are in good health I will stand with you until you are sick with joy instead. I will love you and I will cherish you, forever.”

"I do not think I believe," Aziraphale said slowly, his smile watery. He shifted their hands so one of his hands held both of Crowley's, the other reaching up to cup Crowley's face and wipe it free of tears. "No, I _know_ that not even death shall do us part, my love. For all that you might scoff at the science of souls or the lack thereof, I believe in them. And I know that whatever it is after death, you and I will go into that new adventure together. Our story does not end, not when I love you so."

And with that Aziraphale chuckled, face wet with his own tears. Crowley bent his head down to press his forehead into Aziraphale's, weeping openly and smiling so wide he could taste the salt from his cheeks. He knew his eyelashes were clumpy and was sure he looked like a terrible, joyous raccoon.

Crowley hadn't ever been happier. Then, Eve cleared her throat and Crowley realized it was his turn.

"Well, tits." Crowley chuckled, and Aziraphale laughed, closing his eyes and nuzzling his nose over Crowley's, overwhelmed with affection and love for the man before him.

"Ya– ya know I had a whole thing planned, angel. And you went and said all _that_ and I can't remember a single word I meant to tell you other than I love you. But you already knew that bit. I was gonna quote poetry at you, even! Something you liked! But now you got me all forgetful and clumsy and I swear to you if you let me go I _will_ collapse right here and it'll be your fault!"

Aziraphale laughed again and as much as Crowley knew that everyone was looking at them, he couldn't fathom in the moment a world that was larger than just the two of them. "So I guess I'll wing it…”

"Aziraphale Zimriy Fell, Azira, Angel. _God_ , I never thought I'd get this, you know. Never thought I'd find someone who loved me so much they'd… stay, I guess. The day I met you was the best thing that's ever happened to me. You were late and you had those silly glasses on for your restorations and… bloody hell, Aziraphale, I've never fallen in love so hard and fast as I did then. I thought it was a date, of course I did! Who goes on _tinder_ for a bloody tutor?!"

Their audience laughed along with Crowley and Aziraphale.

"But– but yeah, I've always been a bit arse over tits for you, angel. And I've never been so happy, so all of that you said? Same. Same for me, same for always. If you're in so am I, now and forever. Where you go I follow and I know if I diverge from the path you'll be right by my side, and all that, however it goes. Am I mixing poems? Probably!"

Crowley grinned, wide and happy and his cheeks ached like he'd never smiled so hard, except they'd hurt just like this yesterday too and the day before and however long it had been since Aziraphale had asked for Crowley's hand, undeniable proof that he wanted to marry Crowley. Crowley couldn’t wait for years and years of his face aching from smiling. He wasn't going to pretend there weren't going to be bad days ahead, that's what the sickness and health and the richer and poorer was, wannit? That's why they said all this.

He squeezed Aziraphale's hands and leaned in to kiss the tip of his nose and when he saw Aziraphale’s smile widen he remembered the way he'd planned to end his speech.

"What greater thing is there for two human souls

than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen

each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,

to share with each other in all gladness,

to be one with each other in the

silent unspoken memories?"

Crowley wasn't sure if Aziraphale was familiar with Eliot or not, but it had felt right when he'd been searching through poems online that Aziraphale might like to hear. It was short and it was easy to remember, and it was everything Crowley felt put into words better than his own, and all his promises bundled together into fifty-one words.

Aziraphale’s smile grew impossibly wider as he leaned in for a kiss.

* * *

“I’m afraid I don’t quite know how we got here,” Aziraphale murmured into Crowley’s chest.

Crowley held him tighter. “Me either.”

“I _did_ ask if you wanted to do it.”

“Yeah, yeah, no need to sound smug,” Crowley said. He was looking wildly around for help, but everyone surrounding them seemed intent on this torture going forward. He spotted the unholy duo of Michael and Anathema standing near the DJ, heads together as they conspired. “That’s not going to end well for either of us, you know that right?”

Aziraphale looked over and grimaced. “No, I don’t believe it is.”

“Should we request a specific song?”

A deeper grimace. “Probably.”

“Right, uhh, so I maybe lied a little bit about knowing how to dance.” Crowley knew he was blushing but tried very hard to pretend it was not happening.

“Oh no,” Aziraphale said. “What do you mean?”

Crowley sighed. “I know all of about four disco moves I learned as a fuckin' joke.”

Aziraphale hummed, his brow furrowed. “I don’t suppose you know if there are any disco songs that sample a gavotte?”

“A what?”

“It’s a dance based on French folk dances from the fifteenth century. I, ah, was not entirely truthful about my dancing ability either. It’s the only dance I know.”

Crowley stared at him.

“And I don’t think we’ll be able to find enough others who know it on such short notice.”

“No,” Crowley said very dryly, “I don’t think we’ll be able to find many people here at our wedding who know a French folk dance from the fifteenth century.”

The music started playing and immediately Crowley relaxed. Okay, Anathema and Michael clearly weren’t entirely evil. He could work with Freddie.

“Oh!” Aziraphale said, “I know this one! How do we…?”

“Ah, I think we can just sort of sway?” Crowley certainly hoped just sort of swaying was acceptable, because suddenly that was all he was capable as Aziraphale gazed up at him.

“Swaying?”

“Yeah, like–” Crowley slid his arms down Aziraphale’s sides to his hips and took a single step to the side, pulling Aziraphale with him. “You know, swaying.”

They moved in silence for a few moments, each lost in the other before Aziraphale suddenly snickered.

“What?” Crowley asked, afraid he’d done something embarrassing with so many people watching.

“I cannot believe you thought our first dance was going to be disco!”

“Oi!” Crowley protested, “You thought it was going to be a dance they last did when the humors were in fashion!”

Aziraphale tried to look offended, but couldn’t manage to hold it for more than a moment before dissolving into helpless giggles, Crowley following rapidly behind because good Lord, _the gavotte._

* * *

"Speeches!" Eve announced as soon as she was done with her slice of cake. She stood and gave a terrifying sort of grin before she flounced across to where Haistwell (three-sheets-to-the-wind and loving it) was holding a microphone and looking a bit befuddled about where ens had found it. "I’m first!"

"Eve!" Crowley groaned and hid a grimace of a smile behind his hand as he leaned into the warmth of Aziraphale's shoulder, arms wrapped around him to hold him steady and secure and utterly loved.

"Alright, alright! Shush, you! This is the damn best night of your life and I pray every day Aziraphale keeps that smile on your face like you do his. Now, alright! I've got so many stories for your new husband, and first of all, welcome to the family, we have dinners on Sundays and I expect both of you to be there, you understand me?"

Crowley let his head fall to the table with a theatrical thunk, drawing a soft ripple of laughter from the guests at their tables.

"So, I've birthed two beautiful baby boys in my time. They grew up to be lovely men who I could be proud of. And this one,” she paused and jerked her thumb towards Crowley who waved weakly, “I found at the bottom of an apple tree, skinny as a rail and covered in dirt. Aziraphale, you're in for a ride–I can promise you that loving this man is a journey. But, it's worth it and I hope you are both as happy as me and Adam were.

She paused and smiled. "I hope you're happier, even. But enough about that, I've got rid of my damn mascara so I could cry laughing with all of you, and by God am I gonna tell you some embarrassing teenage stories about Crowley."

"Mum, no!" Crowley shouted, moving to lunge for the microphone in Eve's hand.

Aziraphale tightened his grip and kissed his new husband into submission, distracting him long enough for Eve to start up again.

When Eve finished ensuring Crowley could never again look anyone in the eye, she winked at him and handed the microphone off to Darby, who looked started to find enself holding something besides a glass of champagne. Eve snickered and pushed ens to something approaching a standing position.

“Ahem,” Haistwell said, squinting out at the crowd until ens found Aziraphale. “Aziraphale Crowley-bidake isugeš dam–”

Crowley leaned closer to Aziraphale. “What language is that?”

“Sumerian,” Aziraphale said, sounding half-strangled. Crowley thought he was trying not to laugh, but when he looked he saw that he was actually trying very hard not to cry.

 _Well, that is certainly a thing_ , Crowley thought.

Haistwell kept talking, clearly very passionate about whatever he was saying, until finally ens said;

“Ne suubede shu gamueshiti. Shu mueshimgigin, ning gati!”

Eve groaned and Aziraphale laughed and Crowley had a _terrible_ realization.

“Oh, no,” he whispered.

Aziraphale looked over at him. “Is everything alright, darling?”

Crowley shook his head. “I’ve just realized that I married into a family of nerds.”

Aziraphale patted his hand. “We met because you were teaching me maths so I could understand the stars, a subject you did not go to school for, mind, and instead learned for the _fun of it.”_

“So?”

“Dearheart, you came by ‘nerd’ quite honestly.”

Crowley stopped his slander with a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, when Haistwell gets this drunk ens starts speaking dead languages. Yes, Eve and Aziraphale understand (mostly at least) through long exposure to ens. 
> 
> Sumerian:
> 
> Aziraphale Crowleybidake isugeš dam
> 
> “Aziraphale and Crowley stand as husbands.” 
> 
> Lit. Aziraphale Crowleybidake (Aziraphale Crowley+with) isugeš (they stand) dam (spouse, from: da, ' _ **side**_ ; nearness; to hold, protect', + àm, 'to be; who’) (NOTE: this is bad sumerian please do not trust it as correct)
> 
> Ne suubede shu gamueshiti. Shu mueshimgigin, ning gati!
> 
> “Can I borrow a kiss? I promise I’ll give it back.” (Haistwell was offering possible things either of them could have said to speed things along)
> 
> Detailed info about how to break this sentence down here: https://sumerianlanguage.tumblr.com/post/173492296642/i-saw-the-post-about-the-pick-up-lines-and

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, we would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts that you've been with us. Some of you from the very beginning! Exactly one year from tomorrow, and it means a lot to us that you've kept coming back.
> 
> And the newcomers!! Aah we're so happy to have you too!! To everyone who read through and binged and was with us from the Tinder Meet-Cute we promised and through all the plot points and Caffeine Conspiracies we didn't promise, thank you. You mean the world to us all. For real, you cannot imagine the joy in our dm at each and every comment and kudo. 
> 
> With that all being said, we do have a quick (very exciting!!) note: this will be turned into a book, the first in a series of 8 and adjusted to be slightly different from the characters and the plot points here that you know and love, with emphasis on some of the themes we may not have touched on exactly here (hear us out: reincarnated soulmates through history). 
> 
> You can come see us and talk with us and keep up to date on all our book and writing related news on our [Discord](https://discord.gg/dQ3tCex3kC)! Or, any announcements we have to make about Observable Asterisms (that's the title we picked! But don't worry, it's still long enough to rival The Mathematical Improbability of Reaching the Stars) are gonna be up on our Twitters that are linked in the fic end notes below. 
> 
> It's such a bittersweet place to be, now that everything's said and done, but we loved this story and loved sharing it with you, and we couldn't have done it without your support, it means so much to us. 
> 
> Thank you, we love you, and we hope to see you again soon!
> 
> [Come find D20Owlbear on Twitter here!](https://twitter.com/Great_Ass_aFire)  
> [And find Cassieoh on Twitter here!](https://twitter.com/cassie_ohpeia)
> 
> (p.s. If you're a fan of fusions, our next big collab with the both of us is going to be a Portal/Good Omens based on the "tea is a lie" pic a while back in Ch 14 beginning notes!) 
> 
> (p.p.s. [in case you were wondering which character you are, we made a personality quiz!!](https://uquiz.com/pXmoye))


End file.
